Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Montgomeryshire

Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received in support of the retention of Montgomeryshire as a principal local authority.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): Since publication of the White Paper on local government in Wales, we have received more than 280 letters, more than 4,300 pre-printed leaflets and a petition carrying 16 signatures in favour of a Montgomeryshire unitary authority.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Minister join me in congratulating the Standing Committee considering the Local Government (Wales) Bill, which voted by a significant majority to give unitary status to Montgomeryshire—

Madam Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is referring to a Standing Committee that has not yet reported to the House. I am sure that he knows that, until a Committee has reported, we do not discuss its proceedings on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Minister respond to press reports that there is now a significant majority of opinion among relevant hon. Members on both sides of the House in favour of the retention of Montgomeryshire as a unitary authority together with the other two parts of the county of Powys? Will he ensure that that opinion is sustained as the majority opinion of the House at later stages when the matter is considered? Those involved can then plan, on the basis of unitary status, to give the best of services to the people of that historic and significant county in the centre of Wales.

Mr. Jones: My right hon. Friends and I remain convinced that the Bill provides the best arrangements for local government in Wales, particularly for Powys and for Montgomeryshire. There will be much more decision making by local councillors in Montgomeryshire than at present, and that will be a better arrangement. Of course, we will reflect further before Report.

Mr. Jonathan Evans: Is my hon. Friend prepared to consider further the issue of financial autonomy, which causes much concern in the county of Montgomeryshire and also in the two counties that I represent, Breconshire and Radnorshire? Will he tell members of the Committee whether he is prepared to address the issues in an open-minded way?

Mr. Jones: We have already addressed the issues in an open-minded way, and the proposals for the shire committees—especially for Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire—represent a far better arrangement than exists at present. The authorities would be provided with a block grant, probably on the basis of a standard spending assessment-style arrangement, in respect of 100 per cent. of their finances. That is the best way forward.

Mr. Ron Davies: It is a pity that the Secretary of State, who has responsibility for these matters, is not answering these questions, because this is important. Any proposals that the Under-Secretary may have for strengthening financial devolution will cause considerable resentment, particularly in the boroughs, and any gain that he gets from


devolution in Montgomery will be more than offset by opposition elsewhere. May I press the hon. Gentleman on the point about Montgomeryshire? A substantial majority of Welsh Members of all parties represented in the House are of the opinion that the proposals for Powys are wrong. If the majority view is that Montgomeryshire, Breconshire and Radnorshire should remain as unitary authorities, will the Under-Secretary accept the wishes of Welsh Members of Parliament?

Mr. Jones: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is factually right in his claim about the majority of all political parties wanting to go down the road that he suggests. The financial and other arrangements that we propose are far better and they are there for every part of Wales. Other parts of Wales besides the three historic counties of Powys could well choose to avail themselves of the arrangements for decentralisation that we are building in. The new arrangements will come to be regarded as much superior throughout Wales.

Labour Statistics

Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the level of unemployment in Wales at the latest available date; and what was the percentage unemployment rate.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Redwood): Seasonally adjusted, the number of claimants unemployed in Wales in March 1994 was 125,300, representing a rate of 9.9 per cent. of the work force.

Mr. Hughes: Has the Minister considered the proposed closure of the Compton Webb factory in Newport, which for more than 40 years has made uniforms for the military and other public services? Why do the Government continue to give orders to that firm, given that its production is increasingly being transferred to north Africa while our people are being put on social security? Does it have something to do with the fact that the parent company, Coats Viyella, is a regular contributor to Tory party funds?

Mr. Redwood: Of course not. The Ministry of Defence awards contracts on the basis of good value for money. Like the hon. Gentleman, I hope that we can make more things in Wales and meet more of the MOD's requirements. I note that the hon. Gentleman did not mention the fact that unemployment was down 5,751 in the 12 months to March 1994 or the major assistance that his area receives from the urban programme, in Welsh Development Agency cash and from the special development scheme. We are keen to promote more business in his area. I hope that he will work with us because around Wales we are having great success in generating the jobs people want. It is about time that Opposition Members welcomed that.

Dr. Spink: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that inward investment is the key to driving down unemployment in this area of the country and that the Government's policies of providing deregulation, low inflation and low interest rates are attracting inward investment? Will he continue those policies?

Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What a successful year—another successful year—Wales

has had. Provisional figures for 1993–94 show £190 million of investment from the rest of the United Kingdom, £356 million from north America, £130 million from the far east and £88 million from the rest of Europe. That brought about 14,000 new and safeguarded jobs to Wales. We need much more such investment and we shall continue to promote it actively. We also want more home-grown jobs. That is also a central policy which the Government are pursuing.

Mr. Ainger: Is the Secretary of State aware that this afternoon the management of the Pembrokeshire NHS trust will inform 55 members of its staff that they are redundant and that it will seek another 45 redundancies over a short period? Does he accept what that management says—that the cause of those redundancies is the fact that the Welsh Office has not funded the 2.9 per cent. pay rise that nurses and doctors rightly received? Will he investigate the particular circumstances that have caused those 100 jobs to be lost in Pembrokeshire and the likely impact on other trusts and health authorities throughout Wales of the Welsh Office refusing to pay for the 2.9 per cent. pay rise?

Mr. Redwood: I do not accept the reason; it was not underfunding of the pay rise. I believe that there will be redundancies and reductions in posts at that trust. I believe that they will be in administrative and managerial posts, not in medical care posts, as the hon. Gentleman insinuates. I believe that the redundancies are unique to that trust and are not spreading to other trusts. That implies that the redundancies are to do with the management of that trust. I am sorry that some people will lose their jobs. It is important that it is done in a way that does not damage medical care. That is the clear message that I send to all trusts around Wales. We want the maximum amount of money spent on patient care, which is what I believe the Pembrokeshire trust is trying to do.

Mr. Murphy: Is the Secretary of State aware that—in addition to the devastating news about the job losses in Pembrokeshire—130 men at the Avesta steelworks in my constituency are to lose their jobs, which will be dispersed to Sheffield and Sweden? What advice will he personally give to my constituents and those made jobless in Pembrokeshire today, who now face either the dole or work in lower-paid, often part-time, jobs?

Mr. Redwood: Once again, the Opposition are concentrating on the bad news and not looking at the fact that we are generating more jobs than we are losing. Of course I am sad for the hon. Gentleman's constituents, but there is a process of change under way that no Government in the world can stop: fashions and demands change. It is important that we carry on succeeding for Wales and promoting Wales. Why does not the hon. Gentleman mention TRW Steering Systems, which announced today 400 new safeguarded jobs at its plant, with a £10 million investment? Why does not he mention the good news from Betws colliery, where a management buy-out is going ahead to bring back 90 jobs? Why does not he mention the Calsonic research and development project, which I was able to initiate two weeks ago? That is people backing Wales and giving Wales the jobs that it needs.

Housing

Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he is taking to promote the private rented housing market.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: The opportunities provided by the Housing Act 1988, together with Welsh Office support, have already achieved an 18 per cent. increase in private rented housing between 1990 and 1992.

Mr. Thurnham: Is my hon. Friend aware that private rented housing makes a much greater contribution to housing need in most other countries than it does in Britain? Does he welcome the Opposition's somewhat belated recognition of the fact that that sector badly needs a boost?

Mr. Jones: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. The Opposition's recognition always seems to be belated; my hon. Friend could have described it as a death-bed repentance. The difference between the two parties is that there is a recognition of reality on the Conservative Benches, but a lack of it on the Opposition Benches.
I have referred to the 18 per cent. increase in private rented housing and we shall do even better than that. The last census showed that Wales is an increasingly better-housed nation, and we should make the best use of that housing.

Mr. Dafis: Will the Minister nip in the bud any idea that housing association grant should be made available to private developers and landlords? Does he accept that that would be a misuse of public funds and would lead to increased rents in what we term social housing, where rent levels are already causing concern to Tai Cymru?

Mr. Jones: I cannot accept such a blinkered approach to housing. We should remain open to all possibilities for making the greatest use of taxpayers' money to achieve the greatest provision of social housing. The hon. Gentleman might care to reflect warmly on what has already been achieved. Since the inception of Housing for Wales, there has been a 100,000 increase in provision.

European Community

Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the importance to the Welsh economy of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Community.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts): The United Kingdom's membership of the European Community has given Wales access to a market of more than 346 million consumers and has enhanced Wales's attractiveness to inward investors looking for a base within the Community. In the past five years' almost 400 inward investment projects from overseas have been recorded in Wales, forecasting the creation or safeguarding of more than 41,000 jobs and representing a capital investment of more than £3 billion.

Mr. Williams: Why should the people of Wales be denied the rights to consultation, employment protection and equality between men and women, as enshrined in the social chapter and adopted by our 11 partners in the European Union? Why do the Government condemn the British work force to second-rate terms of employment?

Sir Wyn Roberts: Our exemption from the social chapter, which was negotiated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, is most important to the Welsh economy. The imposition of the social chapter would cause unemployment. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, what the Welsh economy needs is more inward investment to provide more jobs. Wales has done well in that respect in the past and will do so in the future.

Mr. Roger Evans: My right hon. Friend has dealt with the importance of inward investment. How much assistance is Wales obtaining from the European Union structural funds? Can he give us an indication of the importance of that assistance?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I am glad to assure my hon. Friend that we have done well under the new structural funds. As he knows, industrial south Wales has objective 2 status and can expect £146 million between 1994 and 1996. Rural Wales has secured objective 5b status and can expect £143 million over the same period.

Mr. Morgan: Does the Minister nevertheless agree that the evidence given to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry—that low wages do not make an economy competitive—is exceptionally important to Wales, as we are so dependent on multinational companies with headquarters in mainland Europe? Does he also agree with observations that formed part of the evidence to the Committee—that there are weaknesses in basic literacy and numeracy in Wales, with German school children aged 15 two years ahead of our children in mathematics? We cannot go on relying on low wages or we will be condemning our workers to permanent pauperdom in Tory sweatshops.

Sir Wyn Roberts: But the hon. Gentleman will know that many factories are in Wales precisely because it is the best place in the European Community for them to invest. The fact that our wages are low compared to those in the United Kingdom and Europe is certainly taken into account in decisions about the location of factories and investments from overseas. Many countries in Europe envy us because production costs in Wales are lower than theirs.

Agriculture

Mr. Wigley: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received from fanning unions on the implications of general agreement on tariffs and trade reforms for the future of agriculture in Wales.

Sir Wyn Roberts: My right hon. Friend and I are aware of the assessment of the implications of the GATT agreement published by the National Farmers Union, but have not received any direct representations on the matter.

Mr. Wigley: Does the Minister accept that GATT is about free trade and that the future of Welsh farming is about getting Welsh products into markets without any discrimination? In those circumstances, will he make it clear to our German colleagues that there is no evidence to show that any beef from Wales has entered the markets affected by BSE? Indeed, the safeguards that we have put in place prevent that from happening. If the Germans persist in going down that road, will the Welsh Office initiate legal action over unfair trade practice?

Sir Wyn Roberts: The hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and others have pointed that out to the German Government on more than one occasion. Of course, GATT is intended to facilitate the promotion of free trade, and we are likely to do rather well under the agreement in Wales. Welsh lamb is already doing well: one quarter of the lamb exported from this country is Welsh lamb.

Mr. John Marshall: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the prosperity of Welsh agriculture is dependent on the prosperity of its customers? Does he also agree that the GATT agreement will lead to greater prosperity in the world, the United Kingdom and Wales and that it is therefore good for Welsh agriculture?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I fully agree. That is why the GATT agreement was so important for this country: it is designed to increase world trade, and we will benefit from it. In Wales, we stand to gain, and we certainly do not share the NFU's somewhat gloomy view of the prospects. We share the Commission's view, which is far brighter.

Mr. Denzil Davies: This question may be about GATT and agriculture, but has the Welsh Office studied the effect of GATT on Welsh manufacturing industry, bearing in mind that wages in the far east are much lower—

Madam Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted that his remarks are barely related to the question, which concerns farming and the future of agriculture. Can he do any better?

Mr. Davies: The Minister mentioned the fact that customers are very important. If Welsh manufacturing industry is destroyed by GATT, there will be no one around to buy the Welsh lamb to which he referred. So —in view of the importance of Welsh manufacturing industry to Welsh agriculture—what studies has the Welsh Office carried out into the effects of GATT on Welsh manufacturing, bearing in mind the difference in wage levels in industry in Wales and the far east?

Sir Wyn Roberts: We certainly stand to gain from the GATT agreement, as I said. The right hon. Gentleman will know that that is why the agreement was negotiated and why it was so important for us and for other countries. Any analysis of prospects is inevitably complex because it involves certain anticipations and assumptions about the course of world trade prices in coming years.

Mr. Ron Davies: I think that the Minister understands that there is widespread apprehension in the Welsh farming community about the GATT agreement signed last week and about future common agricultural policy reform. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that strong environmental and social, as well as economic, reasons exist for maintaining Welsh agriculture? Does he accept that the decline in the traditional family farm and the numbers of young people entering Welsh agriculture are symptoms of the failure of his Government's policy?
As the green box and the CAP reform compensation measures are exempt from GATT, why does not the right hon. Gentleman take advantage of the fact that his Department is responsible for agriculture, the environment, rural affairs and employment? Using the opportunities presented by his office, why does not he develop a long-term strategy for the future development of the Welsh countryside?

Sir Wyn Roberts: We do, indeed, take advantage of every opportunity afforded to us by the special standing of the Welsh Office and the fact that we are responsible for agriculture, the economy and the environment. It is very much in our own interests and in our mind to devise a secure, long-term future for agriculture, involving support for the environment. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that that is why we established the Countryside Council for Wales and why we are involved in agri-environmental support. He will also be aware that the hill livestock compensatory allowance and so on exist not simply to offer agricultural support, but for the well-being of the environment.

Vale Of Glamorgan Unitary Authority

Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many representations he has received from people and organisations in the communities of Ewenny, Saint Bride's Major and Wick in favour of his proposals to put them in the proposed Vale of Glamorgan unitary authority.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: Five since the White Paper, besides representations from the Vale defence committee.

Mr. Griffiths: Does the Minister accept that the fact that there were five responses in favour as compared with more than 100 against, and that 75 per cent. of the residents of the three communities responded to an electoral ballot in which about 85 per cent. said that they wanted to stay with Bridgend, should be enough to persuade the Government to accept the premise of their own White Paper about taking local wishes into account? Does the Minister therefore accept that the three communities of Ewenny, Saint Bride's Major and Wick should be allowed, even at this late stage, to have their overwhelming demands to stay with the Bridgend unitary authority met?

Mr. Jones: I would also mention that we have had substantial representations from the Vale of Glamorgan borough council, Colwinston community council, Llandough community council and Penllyn—essentially, the other members of the family, who are looking forward to being joined by those three communities. The communities will not lose any facilities and I believe will feel at home in a more sympathetic authority that is much more in tune with rural communities.

Mr. Sweeney: Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that there is considerable support for the Government's proposals in the Vale of Glamorgan and that the Vale of Glamorgan will warmly welcome those three communities? In the light of the comparative records of the different unitary authorities, it is likely that those three communities will benefit from significantly lower council tax charges under a Vale unitary authority.

Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend is right about the warm response for those three communities from the Vale of Glamorgan. He is probably also absolutely right when he says that, in future, the residents of those communities will enjoy a lower council tax.

Public Appointments

Mr. Hanson: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much was paid in respect of their duties to board members of non-departmental public bodies appointed by him in 1992–93.

Mr. Redwood: Board members received £703,934 in 1992–93.

Mr. Hanson: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. That figure will undoubtedly rise. Will the right hon. Gentleman be happy for an increasing number of people to be paid for as part of the unelected state when the money could be diverted to provide democratic control of the services in question? Several people are now earning in excess of £50,000 to £60,000. Is the Secretary of State happy with that?

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman's attack has backfired on him. I welcome the fact that the Labour party is campaigning, in its new guise, for fewer quangos, but I find that about as credible as the Welsh rugby team saying that they are now teetotal. The Labour party has never opposed quangos in its life—and has usually recommended the establishment of many more. I also reject the idea that the Labour party is putting around that it is my aim to have more people on quango boards than elected councillors. That is quite untrue. It also shows how much scorn the Labour party has for community councils. It has ignored 730 of those as well as miscalculating the figures so as to try to suggest that there are or will soon be more quango members than there are elected councillors. That is also quite untrue.
I believe that elected people have a strong role to play in our democracy, but local authorities and central Governments of all persuasions from time to time delegate functions to boards of experienced people. We ensure that they are properly monitored and we report back to the House or they report back to their Labour-controlled council chambers.

Mr. Richards: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in spite of the clamour on the Opposition Benches against quangos, the Labour party has never once voted against the establishing of a new quango and neither has it indicated that, in the unlikely event of a Labour Government ever being formed, it would wish to abolish any quangos?

Mr. Redwood: I think that my hon. Friend is right and I look forward to the proposals to abolish quangos. I hope that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) will send me a little list because we might be able to find that we can do business across the Floor of the House.

Mr. Llwyd: Does the Secretary of State realise that the Conservative party in north Wales has sunk into fourth place in the race for the European election? In spite of that, does he deplore, as I do, the political statements being made by the chairman of the Gwynedd area health authority, who has suddenly come out in his true colours? Is not it disgraceful that the only qualification that he had to do that job was his affiliation to the party?

Mr. Redwood: I deny that latter charge and on the former point I look forward to the real poll, because we often find that polls are extremely misleading.
I was amused that the hon. Gentleman's original question backfired, because it shows that the amount that

we spend on Welsh quango board members is less than it is said that a single Member of the European Parliament costs.

Housing

Mr. Jonathan Evans: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total level of public expenditure on housing in Wales in 1994–95.

Mr. Redwood: Government provision for Welsh housing programmes for 1994–95 is set at £634.9 million, an increase of £27 million over the plans for 1993–94.

Mr. Evans: Can my right hon. Friend inform the House of the proportion of the overall housing budget that is accounted for by housing benefit? Is he happy with that proportion and the growing proportion that goes towards housing benefit? What steps can be taken to ensure that more goes towards new housing provision rather than creating a situation in which many people on low wages find that they may well be priced out of housing association dwellings?

Mr. Redwood: The best way of tackling that problem is to encourage more jobs and higher incomes because they lift people out of housing benefit. On the supply side, obviously the right answer is to do what the Government are doing, which is to promote actively more housing schemes in suitable places, so that there is sufficient supply to meet the requirements for new family formation. The figures that I gave were figures for the amount of money available for those prime housing programmes of new build and improvement.

Mr. Barry Jones: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that I have presented to his Department a series of petitions calling for investment in aging housing stock? Will he therefore give a generous extra allocation to Alyn and Deeside district council, to enable it to modernise a series of aging council estates? Does he also realise that in cold weather many bedrooms are not habitable for young children, and that young mothers in my constituency are asking for central heating and new windows so that their homes may be fit to live in?

Mr. Redwood: Of course I want to see decent homes and I want to encourage councils to maintain and improve their stock, just as I wish to see a high-quality stock in the private sector and among the housing associations. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we work out the amounts of money by a formula that tries to take into account the requirements of each council and I, like him, am impatient to get on with the work. Many homes in Wales have been improved in the past 15 years. More homes need improvement and my hon. Friend can rest assured that money will be made available.

Mr. Llew Smith: Can the Minister tell me how those people in Wales who are unemployed or in low-paid part-time non-union jobs can purchase a home to start their family life?

Mr. Redwood: Some will be able to through the low-cost housing for sale programme that I am currently beefing up along with the housing institutions that operate in conjunction with the Welsh Office. It is the best form of tenure. It is so much better for people to reach retirement owning their home, knowing that they do not have to meet


an increasing rent bill out of their pension and, wherever possible, we encourage them to buy, because that is true social housing. Where that is not possible, we will ensure that there is subsidised housing for rent available or decent housing for rent with housing benefit.

Primary Schools

Sir David Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much was spent per pupil in primary schools in Wales in the most recent year for which figures are available; and what was the figure for 1978–79, at constant prices.

Mr. Redwood: In 1992–93, current expenditure per pupil in primary schools in Wales was £1,590. The equivalent constant price figure for 1978–79 was £1,067. That is an increase of a massive 49 per cent. in real spending per pupil.

Sir David Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures show an impressive increase in expenditure for primary school pupils in Wales? Is he satisfied that that increased expenditure is reflected in an improvement in standards?

Mr. Redwood: My right hon. Friend is right to say that it is a big increase. It reflects generous increases in teachers' wages and decent educational provision in our primary schools. Like him, I want even higher standards, and I am not happy that 28 per cent. of seven-year-olds in primary schools in Wales are achieving only level 1 in arithmetic whereas they should be achieving level 2, which is the right standard for seven-year-olds. That means that we are still letting too many seven-year-olds down and I have asked inspectors to pay attention to teaching methods, to see what succeeds and what does not so that we can spread best practice more widely.

Visitors

Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the number of visitors to Wales in 1993; and what was the estimated level of expenditure by them.

Sir Wyn Roberts: Figures for 1993 are not yet available, but the most recent figures show that, for Wales as a whole, the volume of domestic business in 1992 amounted to 8.3 million trips by United Kingdom holidaymakers, just over 40 million overnight stays and a total value of £930 million. The volume and value of overseas tourism in 1991 amounted to 0.62 million trips, 4.8 million overnight stays and a total value of £128 million. In addition, day visits accounted for 0.32 million trips with a value of £229 million.

Mr. Coombs: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that information. But when will the 1993 figures be available, given that the last of the 1993 visitors must have gone home by now? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the number of visitors from outside the United Kingdom is of the greatest importance to Welsh tourism? What steps is the Welsh tourist board taking to increase the number of overseas visitors?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that the figures that I gave were somewhat detailed. The figures for 1993 will also be detailed and they therefore

take a bit of gathering and analysis. On overseas visitors, the tourist board's overseas marketing strategy has identified some 10 countries to be targeted and, once that has happened, we hope that the number of overseas visitors to Wales will increase by about 8 per cent. per annum in the next three years. We shall spend more next year than we spent this year on attracting visitors from overseas.

Dr. Howells: Does the Minister think that visitors to Wales will be encouraged by the sighting of a stinking asphalt cording plant on Little Garth in the Taff's Well gorge, where most people who go up into the valleys of south Wales start their journeys? Will he do what he can in the Welsh Office to help local authorities to overturn the old development orders that chain them to allowing companies like Redlands to put those unnecessary plants in those beautiful places?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I understand that that matter is being considered by Mid-Glamorgan, which is the planning authority. When I last went up the Taff valley, I looked carefully at the surroundings and I found them most attractive, despite some of the industrial development in the area.

Lambing

Mr. Alex Carlile: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement about the effect of the weather upon the 1994 lambing season in upland Wales.

Sir Wyn Roberts: It is too soon to assess the overall effect of this winter's weather on the lambing season. Lambing is still in progress on many upland farms where the most recent spell of warmer, drier weather should have eased some of the problems.

Mr. Carlile: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his answer. Given the terrible weather of late March and early April, will he keep an open mind? If it can be shown that this year's losses were higher than could reasonably have been expected—taking into account business risk—will he then consider the possibility of special weather aid payments?

Sir Wyn Roberts: That is why we have special payments—particularly for upland farmers, who must contend with special problems. Those difficulties are taken into account in the autumn review, after we have considered exactly how problems such as the current ones involving lambing have affected farm incomes.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATTORNEY-GENERAL

Ministerial Visits

Mr. Gapes: To ask the Attorney-General when he next plans to visit Northern Cyprus to discuss extradition.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Derek Spencer): My right hon. and learned Friend has no such plans.

Mr. Gapes: Is it not about time that the Government put some serious pressure on the Denktash regime in northern Cyprus, directly and through Turkey, to secure Mr. Asil Nadir's extradition back to this country—or is it true to say that the £440,000 that Mr. Nadir gave the Conservative party is now reaping its rewards?

The Solicitor-General: The Department of Trade and Industry drew that question to the attention of the Serious Fraud Office at the beginning of its inquiry. Having considered all the issues, the SFO decided to focus its attention on the frauds that are at present before the court.
I emphasise that the SFO—which is an independent prosecuting authority—made its decisions without reference to Ministers or to the Law Officers. We would welcome any pressure from any quarter that would persuade Mr. Nadir to return to this country and stand trial.

Mr. Booth: Does not the law of extradition allow any fugitive from justice to surrender voluntarily? In this case, should not every encouragement be given to Asil Nadir —who is currently besmirching the fine island of Cyprus and its fine people—to come back voluntarily and stand trial?

The Solicitor-General: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The trial was fixed for last autumn, and Mr. Nadir did not attend; we are anxious that he should make an early return and stand trial.

Mr. Skinner: Can the Minister tell us whether the Tory party has handed back Asil Nadir's £440,000 gift to anyone?

The Solicitor-General: The hon. Gentleman must have been distracted: I answered that question a few moments ago.

Serious Fraud Office

Mr. Mans: To ask the Attorney-General what steps are being taken to improve the effectiveness of the Serious Fraud Office.

The Attorney-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): The Serious Fraud Office keeps its working procedures under review with a stocktaking after each case. The Government are also considering important recommendations by the Royal Commission on criminal justice, including the case for more detailed advance disclosure by the defence.

Mr. Mans: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, where possible, defence counsel should give a clear indication of their line of defence at the beginning of trials, in their opening statements, so that juries do not have to wait many months to find out?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend has picked up an important point, which was made by the royal commission itself: once the defendant knows precisely what case he must meet, it is right that he should give a sufficient indication of his defence so that the jury knows at the outset what issues are to be tried and to be decided by it, rather than having to wait for many weeks—sometimes months—to find out.

Mr. Bermingham: Does the Attorney-General agree that the problem with the Serious Fraud Office has always been the over-complicated indictments that it prefers? Should it not simplify those indictments, and go for the simple, main criteria of criminality?

The Attorney-General: The problem that is always faced in such complex cases is to prefer the right charges so as to focus on the true criminality without either over-complicating the issue or so narrowing the focus that

justice cannot be done. The Serious Fraud Office has made great improvements in recent years in this matter, as its conviction record shows.

Public Interest Immunity Certificates

Mrs. Roche: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement about the use of public interest immunity certificates.

The Attorney-General: Public interest immunity certificates play an important part in the common law system whereby the courts determine the balance between competing public interests.

Mrs. Roche: If Lord Justice Scott finds that the Attorney-General was wrong to advise Ministers to use public interest immunity certificates in the Matrix Churchill case, will the Attorney-General resign?

The Attorney-General: Lord Justice Scott's consideration of these matters involved a serious consideration of common law, on which there is a great deal of judicial authority. For a serious and thoughtful consideration of the matter, I recommend that the hon. Lady reads carefully the evidence before the inquiry, which she will find illuminating.

Mr. Matthew Banks: Will my right hon. and learned Friend tell the House on how many occasions in recent years a judge has had to decide which documents that are the subject of a public interest immunity certificate should be disclosed to the defence? Was it on each and every occasion?

The Attorney-General: Without any doubt, I can tell my hon. Friend that on every occasion when a judge in a criminal case has to decide whether documents that are the subject of a public interest immunity certificate should be disclosed, the judge will read the documents, consider them carefully and then decide. The notion that the system is designed to suppress documents is completely inaccurate.

Mr. Fraser: Will the Attorney-General answer the question that he felt unable to answer earlier? Why was the special nature of the certificate given by the President of the Board of Trade not drawn to the attention of the judge or defence counsel? What steps is he taking to ensure that that sort of lapse does not occur again? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would resign if he was criticised by the Scott inquiry. How many of the Ministers who gave evidence to the inquiry share the Chancellor's view?

The Attorney-General: The hon. Gentleman is misinformed. The special nature of the certificates signed by the President of the Board of Trade was expressly drawn to the attention of the judge by counsel—it leapt from the page. Nobody reading that specially designed certificate who had any understanding of the subject of public interest immunity could fail to realise that it was a special certificate designed to leave the decision on whether the documents should be disclosed to the defence to the judge.

Mr. Maclennan: Pending the report of the Scott inquiry, what arrangements has the Attorney-General made to strengthen his position when he has to advise his colleagues so that we do not experience problems in the interim?

The Attorney-General: I had the benefit of the advice of junior counsel to the Treasury, now a High Court judge, and a leading Queen's counsel, then the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association. My advice was given with great care and with the best possible backing.

Mr. Anthony Alliss

Mr. Knapman: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the case of the late Mr. Anthony Alliss.

The Solicitor-General: Two persons charged with the murder of Anthony Alliss were acquitted on the direction of the trial judge at Bristol Crown court on 24 June 1991. After causing extensive inquiries to be made into the conduct of the prosecution, I am entirely satisfied that it was conducted to a high standard.

Mr. Knapman: I appreciate that my hon. and learned Friend cannot comment in detail on individual cases, but he will understand that, in this particular case, we have a body, an unfinished case and therefore no conviction. In the light of those circumstances, one must understand the feelings of the family involved. Will my hon. and learned Friend please try to ensure, however, that those circumstances do not occur again?

The Solicitor-General: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the assiduous way in which he has pursued his constituent's interests in this case, but the trial was conducted by a High Court judge and the Crown was represented by a very experienced leader on the western circuit. After the judge had heard all the evidence, he concluded that it was not fit for the jury to consider. In a case of that sort, that is the end of the matter.

Public Interest Immunity

Mr. Peter Bottomley: To ask the Attorney-General what methods are available to alter the law and procedures for overcoming public interest immunity.

The Attorney-General: The law and procedures relating to public interest immunity are continually being developed by the courts. It is also open to Parliament to legislate on the subject.

Mr. Bottomley: Can my right hon. and learned Friend recollect any suggestion from the media or any Opposition party in the past two or three years for a change in the law or the procedures of public interest immunity certificates? If he cannot recollect any such suggestion—I certainly cannot—does not he think that they are merely trying to exploit a situation in which the law has been laid down by judges in court and duly followed?

The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend is entirely right to say that the law in this sphere is the common law laid down by the high judiciary in the courts. I cannot recall any constructive observation from the Opposition at all.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Non-governmental Organisations

Mrs. Browning: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps the Overseas Development Administration has taken to improve dialogue with non-governmental organisations.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd): The Overseas Development Administration recently helped establish a new network known as the British Non-Governmental Organisations for Development, or by the acronym BOND. We expect this to be an effective mechanism for non-governmental organisations to share information with the Government on how to improve the impact of overseas aid.

Mrs. Browning: Does my hon. Friend accept the grateful thanks of the Corona Society whose members recently accompanied me to see Baroness Chalker and who do an excellent job in many countries? Will my hon. Friend explain to the House how he sees the joint funding scheme helping those organisations which work in very difficult parts of the world?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes, I am happy to confirm what my hon. Friend says. She is also absolutely right to say that the joint funding scheme is extremely well thought of in the Overseas Development Administration. It has nearly doubled in the past five years and in the current year we plan to increase its funding by 14 per cent.

Dr. Howells: But has the Minister spoken to the non-governmental organisations Oxfam and Action Aid about the murder of their workers in Rwanda where 100,000 people have been slaughtered in the past two weeks? Why has Britain, which is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, agreed as part of the unanimous decision to reduce the number of peacekeeping troops in Rwanda from 2,700 to 270? Is there one level of compassion for our European friends in Bosnia and another for black Africans?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Every non-governmental organisation employee in Rwanda who wished to be evacuated has been. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is about to answer the next question on precisely that subject.

Madam Speaker: That is indeed another question, and we shall now move on to it.

Rwanda And Burundi

Mr. Donohoe: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures he will take to facilitate humanitarian relief to the victims of the conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): Since February 1993, we have provided £12 million of emergency aid to Rwanda and Burundi, including our share of European Community assistance. In the past week, we have committed some £820,000 through British non-governmental organisations for those suffering in the present conflict.

Mr. Donohoe: That is all very well, but, as my party's Front-Bench spokesman just asked, as the United Nations security force is doing absolutely nothing but is, in fact, withdrawing from an area that requires its assistance, when will the Government put pressure on the United Nations to bring back its troops to prevent further slaughter?

Mr. Hurd: I am not sure how either hon. Gentleman supposes that maintaining a United Nations force on the original scale will help assuage those horrors. Have not they read the report by the Secretary-General on which the Security Council acted? The Security Council concluded, on the advice of the Secretary-General, that it was no longer possible for that United Nation force to carry out its mandate in the form expected. Therefore, as happened some months ago in Angola in a slightly similar situation, it was decided to run down the force. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no magic in keeping troops there if there is nothing useful that they can do.

Mr. Lester: Will my right hon. Friend do everything that he can to assist the Organisation of African Unity in what has to be in the end a negotiated settlement—preferably negotiated by Rwanda's neighbours? One attempt has been made already to bring the parties together. Will we offer all our experience and assistance to enable that process to begin?

Mr. Hurd: Indeed, the initiative here is with the President of Tanzania. He called for a peace conference on Rwanda in Arusha on Saturday, but it did not take place in the form intended. He is renewing his efforts, and that must be right. The effort must be to bring an end to the fighting. That cannot be achieved, as has been proved, by the United Nations force on the ground. There must be an end to the fighting; in the meanwhile, we shall do all that we can to relieve the human suffering. That is what the Community is doing.

Uganda

Mr. Luff: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to provide aid to reduce the burden of Ugandan debt.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: We have provided more than £93 million in balance of payments support for Uganda's economic recovery programme since 1987, which has helped to ease the debt-servicing burden. We have also forgiven all Uganda's old aid debt to the United Kingdom.

Mr. Luff: Does my hon. Friend agree that his answer provides further evidence of Britain's excellent record on aid and debt relief to the poorest nations, such as Uganda? Does he also agree that for countries, such as Uganda, which face serious debts to multilateral institutions, similarly enlightened attitudes will be required from other countries, especially Japan?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: My hon. Friend is right. The Prime Minister was responsible for the Trinidad terms which have given enormous relief to many countries, including Uganda. We very much hope that Japan will join any Paris club consensus for improving the existing terms. I should add that Japan implements the existing Trinidad terms with other creditors and has made clear that it has a commitment to help developing countries.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Given that Uganda is one of the five poorest countries in the world, how is it logical and justifiable that over the next five years, Uganda will be repaying £200 million to the International Monetary Fund, one of the richest institutions in the world? How can that be justified? If it cannot be justified, what can we do about it?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The fact is that Uganda is projected, over the years 1993–94 to 1995–96, to receive US $744 million from the World bank's special programme for Africa.

European Fund For Development

Mr. Wells: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress he is making in making the European Fund for Development more effective.

Mr. Hurd: We are working with the European Commission to improve the effectiveness of EC development expenditure, with some success so far. In the mid-term review of Lomé IV, we are seeking changes that will also improve effectiveness, notably by directing funds more to those countries that can make best use of them.

Mr. Wells: Is not it true that the bank is now paying more in overheads than it is disbursing? My right hon. Friend made vigorous representations at the bank board's recent meeting against that practice. When does he expect delivery of the European development fund programmes to exceed expenditure on overheads?

Mr. Hurd: I think that my hon. Friend and I are on slightly different tracks. I am answering a question about the European fund for development. I think that my hon. Friend is asking me about the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. I shall have to answer his question on the running costs of the EBRD at greater leisure.

Madam Speaker: I call Mr. Enright. Can he get it right? The question concerns the European fund for development.

Mr. Enright: On the European development fund, does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is a very good instrument for converting emergency aid into long-term aid? I think especially of Mozambique. The moment that it gets off the front pages, people stop considering long-term needs. The EDF is well geared to satisfy those needs. I hope that the Government are working along those lines.

Mr. Hurd: It is certainly true that the EDF shares many of the objectives of our bilateral aid programme. I am very struck by the increase in our commitment to the EDF; it was more than £440 million in 1992–93. It is a very large part of our multilateral aid which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is growing as a proportion of the total. We need to be sure—surer than I am at the moment—that the priorities and effectiveness of the EDF are as great as those in our bilateral aid programme. That is why the mid-term review of Lomé IV is so important.

Aid Projects

Mr. Matthew Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Overseas Development Administration ensures that all aid projects are assessed for their environmental sustainability.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: All projects are subject to environmental assessment according to the guidelines and procedures set out in the Overseas Development Administration manual of environmental appraisal.

Mr. Banks: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Will he give the House an assurance that the ODA will always

undertake an environmental sustainability assessment before making a decision on an especial aid project and that, when that has taken place, the decision will be taken with due regard to all factors, including economic factors and the quality of the programme under consideration?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Yes. Sustainable development is a central aim of the aid programme in all that it does. Environmental impact assessments are always conducted before any aid project is undertaken. Indeed, I should also add that many aid projects are designed to improve the environment. For example, forestry conservation and management projects improve the environment.

Bosnia

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement about Bosnia. In response to the continued Bosnian Serb shelling of Gorazde and the horrifying civilian casualties, the United Nations Secretary-General wrote on 18 April to the Secretary-General of NATO, asking Dr. Wörner to obtain as soon as possible a decision of the North Atlantic Council to authorise the use of air strikes at UN request to protect the safe areas, as provided for in Security Council resolution 836.
The shelling of Gorazde continued unabated. The North Atlantic Council met on 20 April and decided that military advice should be sought urgently on the UN Secretary-General's request and that it should meet again on 22 April to take the necessary decisions. Senior Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence officials went to Washington to discuss additional proposals put forward by the United States. The Russian Government were kept informed of developments.
The United Nations Security Council met early on 22 April and passed its resolution 913, which called on the Bosnian Serbs and the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina to conclude an immediate ceasefire agreement under the auspices of UNPROFOR, condemned the Bosnian Serb shelling of Gorazde and demanded the withdrawal of Bosnian Serb forces to a distance to be agreed by UNPROFOR. The resolution also demanded the immediate release of all UN personnel and unimpeded freedom of movement for UNPROFOR.
When the North Atlantic Council met on 22 April, it authorised Commander-in-Chief, Southern Command, Admiral Smith, to conduct air strikes against Bosnian Serb heavy artillery and other military targets within a radius of 20 km from the centre of Gorazde unless the following occurred: Bosnian Serb attacks on Gorazde ceased immediately; Bosnian Serb forces pulled back 3 km from the centre of Gorazde by one minute past midnight on 24 April; UN forces were free to enter Gorazde; and medical evacuations were permitted.
The NATO Council took a further set of decisions on the same day. It established a military exclusion zone of 20 km around Gorazde, from which all heavy weapons must be withdrawn by one minute past midnight on 27 April—Wednesday morning—or be subject to NATO air strikes. The NATO Council also decided that, if there were an attack by heavy weapons against the other safe area zones of Bihac, Srebrenica, Tuzla or Zepa, from any range, or if, in the judgment of NATO and UN military commanders, there were any threatening movement or concentration of heavy weaponry within 20 km of those areas, they would immediately be designated, individually or collectively, as exclusion zones along the lines of that in Gorazde. If any Bosnian Serb heavy weapons were found in designated military exclusion zones around those safe areas after one minute past midnight on 27 April, they and Bosnian Serb military support facilities would be subject to air strikes. It was agreed—this is a crucial point—that any such attacks would be carried out under the agreed co-ordination procedures with UNPROFOR. So it is a dual-key arrangement between the UN and NATO. Either can propose air strikes; both have to agree.
On Saturday 23 April, the Secretary-General's special representative in the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Akashi, reached an agreement with the Bosnian Serb military and civilian authorities, in which a ceasefire was declared around Gorazde with effect from midday on 23 April. It was also agreed that UNPROFOR would deploy a battalion to Gorazde to monitor that ceasefire; that Bosnian Serb heavy weapons would be withdrawn outside a 20 km radius from the centre of Gorazde by midnight on 26 April at the latest; that evacuations would be allowed to proceed; that all UN and humanitarian personnel should have complete freedom of movement; and that negotiations on disengagement should start immediately.
I understand that the Bosnian Serbs are now complying with the terms of that agreement. UNPROFOR deployed a company of Ukrainians, together with a Nordic medical team and 15 military observers, to Gorazde shortly before midnight on 23 April. A further UNPROFOR convoy, comprising a British company from the 1st Duke of Wellington's Regiment and Russian, Egyptian and further Ukrainian elements, arrived in Gorazde yesterday morning.
The evacuation of the wounded is proceeding, supported by British and French helicopters. We have agreed to a request from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to take 50 of the wounded here and we are working closely with UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration on arrangements.
NATO and UNPROFOR remain in close contact. Sarajevo and most of the rest of Bosnia remain relatively calm.
Air strikes are not an end in themselves. We hope that they will not be necessary. But if, in the judgment of NATO and the UN, they are necessary, no one should doubt that they will be undertaken. The first and urgent objective is a lasting ceasefire, first at Gorazde and then more widely in Bosnia. This should in turn lead to a resumption of the peace process, because a negotiated settlement remains the only way to a lasting peace. It has to include a substantial Bosnian Serb withdrawal from territory that they now occupy.
European Foreign Ministers on 18 April and the North Atlantic Council on 22 April reaffirmed their support for that process, welcoming close co-ordination between the European Union, Russia and the United States, with the aim of bringing our diplomatic initiatives more closely together. I have just discussed this with the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Churkin, and, after my statement, I am meeting Secretary of State Christopher and the French Foreign Minister Mr. Juppé here in London. This will be an important theme of the Anglo-German summit on Wednesday.

Dr. John Cunningham: Is the Secretary of State aware that there will be a broad welcome for the measures that he has set out in his important statement? I welcome the fact that—at last, as many will say—there seems to be a clear political strategy agreed between the United Nations and NATO, set out in specific terms, which is apparently a determination to give real safety and support to the designated safe areas in United Nations resolutions, which were carried a very long time ago. I believe that that, in particular, will be generally welcomed.
Is the Foreign Secretary confident that the confusion that was apparent this weekend between Mr. Manfred


Wörner at NATO headquarters, Admiral Smith in Italy and Mr. Akashi in Bosnia will not be repeated? Sadly, there was clearly considerable confusion.
Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm, as I think his statement makes clear, that, although we recognise that air strikes in some circumstances will be regrettably necessary, those strikes will take place only with the agreement of the commanders on the ground in Bosnia and that NATO will not be taking decisions to use air power against the wishes or, literally, over the heads of those responsible for UNPROFOR troops on the ground?
Is the right hon. Gentleman now assured that the discussions that have taken place over the past 72 hours mean that, without any chance of mishap or error, Russia is fully locked into the new United Nations-NATO strategy? Can he assure us that if the Bosnian Serbs do not comply with the deadline of midnight tomorrow, there will be no further hesitation by the United Nations and NATO in taking appropriate action to enforce the decisions that have been made?
In the sad tragedy and calamity of Gorazde, is not the one lesson that we need to learn—one in a long line of lessons to be learned—that if there is indecision, prevarication and confusion by the United Nations and NATO, the people who gain are the Bosnian Serb aggressors while those who lose are not just the Bosnian Muslims, who tragically pay with their lives and many casualties, but the United Nations and NATO because their credibility is further and further undermined?
May I tell the Foreign Secretary—and the Prime Minister—that we wish him well in the discussions later today because we have repeatedly called for that kind of close debate and discussion with our allies to ensure that we can have coherent political objectives in an attempt to resolve this ongoing tragedy in Bosnia?

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his general support. I confirm what I said earlier, which the right hon. Gentleman repeated, about the need to bring together the NATO effort and the UN effort. There is an air effort being conducted through NATO. It happens to include RAF aircraft. There is also a ground effort conducted through UNPROFOR which includes a substantial force of British soldiers. It is essential that those two should work together. Normally in a military operation, they are all part of the same force. Consultation between them is carried out privately, they reach a common view and agree on a common form of action. That is the history of modern warfare. In this case, the two are under the auspices of different organisations. However, they must work together. That is what the dual key means and that is what happened over the weekend. Obviously, we cannot have a system in which one form of operation is commanded and implemented without regard for what is happening elsewhere.
I confirm the right hon. Gentleman's point about Russia. We are seeking to unify the diplomatic efforts of all those concerned. The Russian effort in this area is positive and we want to ensure that it is fully harnessed and in tune with our own. The House need have no doubt that there might be-hesitations: if, following the expiry of the next deadline at midnight tomorrow, the Bosnian Serbs have not withdrawn from the 20 km zone in accordance with the resolution, there will be no hesitation, using the dual key

again in accordance with the situation on the ground, with regard to ordering air strikes if they are necessary for the purpose.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about clarity of purpose. He would not wish to obscure the fact that the working together of NATO and the UN has already produced peace, or something approaching peace, around Sarajevo and peace, or something approaching peace, in large areas of central Bosnia where, even a few weeks ago, there was very fierce fighting. The first effort to achieve that in Gorazde did not succeed and the fighting continued. At the end of the day, fighting continues until those who are fighting are persuaded or forced to do otherwise. In the right hon. Gentleman's natural concern, which we all share in respect of Gorazde, let him not obscure what has been achieved hitherto.

Sir Cranley Onslow: The House will welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and draw some encouragement from it. However, is the UN aware of the identity of the Bosnian Serb commanders who were responsible for attacks on innocent civilians in that designated safe area, particularly on targets such as the hospital in Gorazde? Is there any chance that those men will ultimately be brought to trial for the murders that they have committed?

Mr. Hurd: I share my right hon. Friend's feelings about that. Of course, part of the effort must be to identify individual commanders and others who are responsible and who should be brought to trial for those atrocities within the terms of the resolutions that the UN Security Council has already passed.

Mr. Menzies Campbell: Has not the unsatisfactory nature of the dual key system been demonstrated over the past 48 hours when General Rose apparently asked for air strikes, but was denied them? Once the decision in principle is taken, should not the decision in practice rest exclusively with the commander on the ground? When the right hon. Gentleman sees the United States Secretary of State this afternoon, will he convey to him the anxiety that many people feel about the apparently contradictory statements coming out of the US Administration over Bosnia, and remind him that the success of Sarajevo and the Croat-Muslim peace, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, is attributable to the military and diplomatic leadership of the United States?

Mr. Hurd: I would advise the hon. and learned Gentleman not to take seriously every anecdote that he reads about who asked for what and when. He will agree that the dual key is essential. We cannot have a situation in which those who are responsible on the ground find that those who are responsible in the air are doing something without regard to their own information or their own interests, or vice-versa. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Gentleman has got it wrong. As I said, I would not pay too much credence to such anecdotes.
The fact is that the dual key is essential. It means that there must be constant consultation between Commanderin-Chief South, Admiral Smith, and the UN, which is Mr. Akashi, General de la Presle and General Rose. That is happening.
The hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly right about the crucial role of the United States. Like him, I give it credit for the big advance that was achieved between the


Muslims and the Croats. I am sure that the conversations that I shall have, and the Prime Minister will have, with Warren Christopher this afternoon will carry that forward.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Does my right hon. Friend accept that if the international community had continued to speak with a single voice after Sarajevo, the tragedy of Gorazde would probably have been avoided? Will he now promise the House that there will be no more talk of even handedness between the victim and the aggressor and that, the aggressor having been clearly identified and an ultimatum given, threats will be carried out? Will he further confirm that we are dealing not with warring factions but with a recognised sovereign state and a Government who are multi-ethnic and whom we should support against the aggression from Serbia and the Serbs within Bosnia?

Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend's definition of the role of the UN is not that on which our soldiers are engaged, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has frequently made clear. The aim of the Security Council resolutions and the North Atlantic Council decision, which I have reported to the House, is very specific. The Bosnian Serbs should be in no doubt about our willingness to use both sets of decisions for the purposes named. We will not be involved in fighting on one side of the conflict or the other, and that has been made clear time and again. We have specific objectives which we believe are necessary and justified for the international community.
The conflict will not be brought to an end by military intervention from outside. Military intervention on the ground can help the humanitarian effort and it can help to protect safe areas, as can air intervention. That has been proved and agreed. However, all those concerned, whether they are Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, or adherents to the Bosnian Government, need to understand—I am sure that they do understand—that, at the end of the day, this horror can be brought to an end only by a negotiated settlement, which is why the new set of diplomatic initiatives is under way.

Mr. James Molyneaux: While any reduction in the killing and suffering must be welcomed, is the Foreign Secretary aware that, in Washington, as I discovered last week, there is much support for the view expressed by Lord Healey that the United Nations is in breach of its charter when it interferes in the internal affairs of any member state? Is it not understandable, then, that there should be some confusion about the role of NATO, and should not these matters be examined in detail?

Mr. Hurd: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the success of his visit to the United States. I am not sure that this subject was at the top of his agenda, but I gather that his visit went well and I am glad of that. The Security Council and, indeed, the whole of the United Nations have wrestled for years with the problem of what to do when an unacceptable situation arises essentially within a member state.
In this case, there is fighting between three communities in a member state, which undoubtedly originated there and has been egged on, in particular from Belgrade. The Security Council has resolved that dilemma in a way that takes the shape of many of its resolutions, and that is right.
I do not think that we can leave the matter alone and say

that it is essentially within a member state and we should not have anything to do with it, because there has been outside interference. Nor, however, can we suppose that the UN by itself will be able to impose peace with justice, as opposed to helping those concerned towards a negotiated peace.

Sir Peter Tapsell: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the twin policies of the provision of humanitarian aid and the protection of safe areas are incompatible, and that that has lain at the root of the problems in recent days? Will he explain how the new dual key arrangements which he has announced will overcome that incompatibility?

Mr. Hurd: I do not think that they are incompatible. If my hon. Friend went to Vitez, Maglaj, Mostar or Sarajevo, he would see how they are working together. The airlift to Sarajevo has been resumed and supplies are getting in, and that is as a result of Sarajevo being effectively a safe area. That, in turn, is a result of the efforts of NATO and the UN.
The two objectives that my hon. Friend mentions are working together throughout large parts of Bosnia. They have not worked together in Gorazde, and it is important that they should work together where they can. That is why the decisions that I have reported to the House were taken.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that one of the frustrations that exists in the west, this House and Britain generally about concluding the war is that people tend to believe that the quick effort in the Gulf can be repeated almost everywhere? Does he also agree that the situation in Yugoslavia should be compared with Vietnam, rather than the Gulf, in terms of trying to get a clean, quick finish?
Does the right hon. Gentleman also agree that if we sent a proportionate amount of British troops to the other 27 civil wars throughout the world as have gone to Bosnia and elsewhere, everybody up to the age of 40—probably including Portillo and all the rest of them—would have to be wearing uniforms? Would not the royal family—who are commanders-in-chief of this, that and the other regiment—have to do a bit of fighting as well? Is not this problem ten times more difficult than that experienced in the Gulf?

Mr. Hurd: I thought that the hon. Gentleman started excellently, but he spoiled it totally by the end. His first point is right. Comparisons made between situations are almost always wrong. The worst tragedy in the world in terms of the quantity of suffering is the one on which I answered a question about a quarter of an hour ago—Rwanda.
We do not have a new world order. We have a traditional set of world disorders and we are trying, case by case and institution by institution, to equip ourselves to deal more adequately with those disorders. Each one is different, and the effort that the outside world can make to help solve each one will differ also.

Mr. Ian Taylor: My right hon. Friend's statement clarified certain issues that had not appeared to interlink properly in the past few days. Is he satisfied that the Serbs in Bosnia understand the meaning of deterrence, which is that we will strike if we say we will? We should not fall into a difference of opinion between two separate


organisations. Is not that absolutely critical if NATO is to carry out the UN instructions and prevent Serbian aggression against the safe areas?

Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend. The Bosnian Serbs do understand that. If they did not, they would not have acted around Sarajevo as they did some weeks ago, or as they have acted around Gorazde in the past few hours. I do not say that their understanding is complete, and we must ram it home on all occasions. That is what I am trying to do today. Certainly, their actions begin to show that they have some understanding of that reality.

Mr. Frank Field: As one who has been critical in the past of the Government's stance, may I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement today. Does he accept that in the 1930s, when the Jews in Germany and Poland and surrounding territories were being exterminated, most people in Europe could claim that they knew nothing of what was going on, but that no one has that defence today? Therefore, is not his statement about dual key control and how it will work of crucial importance? In the past 24 hours, has General Rose asked for air power?

Mr. Hurd: I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he should not listen to all the anecdotes in the newspapers. In the past 24 hours, according to my understanding, General Rose has not on any occasion asked for air strikes and been denied them. The position is that there has been discussion on several occasions between the Commander-in-Chief South, Admiral Smith, and General de la Presle, Mr. Akashi and General Rose through the various channels.
There is no doubt about two things. First, up to now it has been the view through the dual key procedure that air strikes would not have helped the process on the ground, which was developing in a helpful way, as I have described to the House.
The hon. Gentleman said that people were dying. Indeed, that is true, but does he think that the medevac —the evacuation from the hospital that he saw on television last night—would have occurred if there had been air strikes? Those are the balances that one has to strike in real life. That is the responsibility that we have put on the NATO and UN commanders. My point has been that they have to exercise those responsibilities together. That is what they are doing.
Secondly, it is clear from what Mr. Akashi says and Secretary-General Wörner says that there should be no doubt in the minds of the Serbs that if they do not comply with the second part of the NATO decision, as they are complying with the first part, they will be at risk of the air strikes which are authorised by that decision.

Mr. Nigel Forman: My right hon. Friend said earlier that a durable peace in war-torn Bosnia would come about only as a result of a negotiated settlement, presumably directly between the parties. Is he optimistic or pessimistic about the pressure that could be exerted by effective economic sanctions? I seem to remember that sanctions are in force. I wonder whether they are proving effective in bringing, particularly, the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table.

Mr. Hurd: I believe, and the information that we have suggests, that sanctions have achieved a considerable change in the attitude of President Milosevic and the

Government in Belgrade. What is in doubt is the chain of influence from Belgrade, through Pale and Mr. Karadzic, to General Mladic and the Bosnian Serb commanders. From time to time, that influence is exerted. From time to time, it does not seem to exist. There is no doubt that sanctions are an effective pressure on Serbia-Montenegro and we and our allies intend fully to maintain them until we see clearly that the resolutions of the Security Council are being applied.

Mr. Mike Gapes: Will the Foreign Secretary state clearly what views the British Government have expressed to the United States in the past few days? Is not it about time that we told President Clinton that we would take his advice more seriously if he were prepared actively to argue for American troops on the ground who could be subject to the bombing by American aircraft that his military commanders advocate? Is not it about time that we told those carping and whining voices in the American Congress that some of us in Europe are getting fed up with getting advice and condemnation when they are not prepared to put their people's lives at risk?

Mr. Hurd: I have certainly heard sound bites, which may not have been typical, from American Senators and Congressmen, that seemed to leave out of account entirely the fact that some of their European allies, including Britain and France, have substantial commitments on the ground and troops who are doing a good job. President Clinton and Secretary of State Christopher understand the position well and have expressed it well. In the past few days, we worked out with the United States professionally, through the work of the officials whom I have mentioned, details that helped to lead to the NATO Council resolution. Others were at work, too. On the diplomatic side, we now have to work with them, the Russians and fellow Europeans to unify the peace process and the diplomatic efforts that we are now making.

Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: Will my right hon. Friend remain extremely cautious about getting UNPROFOR and its large British contingent further embroiled in this treacherous and perilous Bosnian bog? Does he recognise the military reality that safe areas can be protected from a determined assault only by dug-in infantrymen supported by tanks and artillery, which is well beyond the capacity of UNPROFOR? Finally, will he have another look at what happened to the multinational force that was dispatched to Beirut in the 1980s because it was felt that there was a need to do something? Does he remember that it was finally withdrawn after 200 US marines needlessly lost their lives?

Mr. Hurd: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and I are, and have been throughout, very cautious on the subject of British military involvement in Bosnia. We know well the risks of being drawn step by step into a war to which, with respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), we are not a party and in which the usefulness of military action from outside is limited. We have defined at each stage what we think can usefully be done and have helped to organise a United Nations force and a British contribution to it accordingly. The last step, which I just reported to the House, was worked out in substantial detail


by the military authorities in NATO, drawing on the experiences and views of UNPROFOR and of member states. That much I can say.
Parallels—whether with Vietnam, Beirut or other areas —can shed some light, but the differences are greater than the similarities. We are well aware of the risks. I do not believe in all or nothing or that if one cannot do everything, one should do nothing. What we have done diplomatically and militarily in Bosnia fits the needs of the situation and what, in practice, forces from outside countries and institutions can do to help.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Will the Foreign Secretary confirm that between 700 and 2,000 people have lost their lives within 700 miles of London since he came to the Dispatch Box to answer questions on the matter only a few days ago? Many lives have been lost. Will he also confirm that several thousand people have been injured since he last answered questions at the Dispatch Box? Is he really convinced that, in the past seven days, the Government have done everything possible to avoid the terror in that city in Yugoslavia?

Mr. Hurd: Yes, I believe that—within the time that the hon. Gentleman mentioned—we have. If he seriously supposes that summoning massive air strikes on the Serbs around Gorazde would have averted the killing, he is mistaken.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: You have done nothing. Clinton pushed you.

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken, as he has been in many interventions. We have worked together on something that has never happened before in history—the United Nations and NATO working together to extend international activity in Bosnia. The hon. Gentleman is leaving out of the account what has been achieved in Bosnia and the lives that would have been lost if we had not taken those earlier decisions on Sarajevo, in central Bosnia. For heaven's sake, let us recognise what has been achieved and act energetically to improve and build on it. The hon. Gentleman's line of questioning does no one any good.

Mr. Bowen Wells: May I welcome the Foreign Secretary's announcement that all six secure zones in Bosnia will be defended by air? Can he estimate what additional troops will be required in each secure zone to ensure that they are safe and that they are not used as a base for military activity against those attacking the towns?

Mr. Hurd: I cannot give figures for each safe area. That is not my responsibility, but my hon. Friend knows of the efforts that we have made—greater efforts, I think, than those of any other country—to increase the resources available to UNPROFOR. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence gave some figures last week. I can update them.
As a result of our efforts, the UN has received firm offers from member states of about 7,700 additional troops. It has asked those states to proceed with the deployment of about 5,700 of those troops. The deployment of further troops, on top of the ceiling of 5,800 authorised by the UN, will depend on a further resolution

and that, in turn, depends on financial resources—on everyone making available what is needed to finance those troops.
I see a continuing need for increased UNPROFOR forces in the safe areas and in implementing ceasefires, such as the one now obtaining in central Bosnia. That means not just more men—we have been very active not just in providing more men but in getting others to do so —but the finances to keep them going.

Ms Angela Eagle: Can the Foreign Secretary enlighten me a bit more about the working of the dual key system? Can he confirm to the House that in the run-up to the recent threats and ultimatums, at no stage did General Rose ask for air strikes and be refused them?

Mr. Hurd: I answered an earlier question and I am not going into the details—I do not know all of them—of transactions between the UN commanders and NATO. Those transactions occur every day; suggestions are made, discussed and resolved. What I do know is the procedure, which is essential.

Mr. Frank Field: What is the answer?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Lady asked for elucidation about the dual key and I am giving it to her. It means that where one has an air effort and a ground effort, they should be in harmony. Where it is suggested by the UN that there might be an air strike, it is for NATO to agree that it should take place and agree on the targeting. Where NATO believes that an air strike might be justified, for example, because it has seen some results of aerial reconnaissance, it is essential that the UN, which has the information on the ground, should also agree. That seems to be entire common sense. It is the system which has operated in Sarajevo and it is the system which is now operating in Gorazde, because it was confirmed by the NATO Council last week.

Mr. Winston Churchill: I welcome the UN's new-found resolve in respect of Bosnia and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the personal part that he has played in recent days to help to bring that about. Given the ragged track record of the UN thus far in terms of threats made and threats actually delivered, and the number of times that the UN's bluff has been so blatantly called, can my right hon. Friend give the House the assurance that he and the Government will do all in their power, given the new-found international resolve, to ensure that the UN's bluff is no longer called?

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his general remarks, but no bluff was called in Sarajevo. The Bosnian Serbs realised that and acted accordingly. In Gorazde, there was no bluff, because close air support was provided last week, but it did not produce the result expected. That is why NATO has taken the decisions that my hon. Friend supports. I am glad to assure him and, indeed, the Bosnian Serbs and anyone else who may be listening that there is no question of unwillingness by the members of NATO to carry out air strikes on the lines of, and under, the procedures that the NATO Council established last week.

Mr. Max Madden: Can the Foreign Secretary tell us why the British Government seem so terrified of holding a debate in Government time on Bosnia? Could it be that statements are a convenient way of throwing crumbs of information to the House, and


enable the Foreign Secretary to refuse to answer whether General Rose has been refused requests for bombing over the past 48 hours, as opposed to the past 24 hours? Their use also denies critics of Government policy a proper opportunity to explain their case.

Mr. Hurd: I should be delighted to have a debate, because that would be a much less difficult exercise for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and myself than the repeated statements with which we seek to keep the House informed. It is a matter for the usual channels, not for me, but the idea that either my right hon. and learned Friend or I are shrinking from a debate is very far from the truth.

Mr. John Wilkinson: In spite of the potential frustrations involved and in spite of the inherent difficulty in evolving appropriate rules of engagement, can my right hon. Friend confirm that there is no alternative to a dual key authority for the effective use of air power in the theatre? Can he say what measures are available to the UN and NATO as the instrument of deterrence for the UN in what was Yugoslavia, to prevent the Serbs from extending their influence by offensive operations outside the six safe areas?

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful that my hon. Friend, with his experience of those operational matters, supports the dual key as essential. He is entirely right about that.
We are not saying—the international community would be very unwise to say—that we are able to deter all Serb or, indeed, Croat or Muslim offensive activity outside the safe areas. We are not purporting to do that and that is one reason why a return to the negotiating table and, ultimately, a successful negotiation is the only way of ending all those dangers.

Dr. John Cunningham: The right hon. Gentleman's statement refers to United Nations Security Council resolution 913, which re-affirms the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina. What will be the response of the United Nations and NATO if the Serbs attempt not to bombard another safe area, but to annex further territory along the River Sava, for example? It is not a safe area, but it is part of an independent state. What will NATO and the UN do?

Mr. Hurd: Of course it is part of an independent state and the Bosnian Serbs are a community in that state. That is the nature of the conflict. That is why, as the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) said, comparisons with the Gulf and other such dramas are inexact. This is a civil war, to a large extent inspired and egged on from outside.
The Muslims have been gaining ground in some parts of Bosnia, the Serbs in other parts and there is a fragile truce between the Croats and the Muslims. All those facts might change. The UN Security Council set out certain areas and has tried to protect them ever since. That is a limited objective. It would be unwise to pretend, as I have just said, that that protection extends everywhere. It does not.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Madam Speaker: Order. We must now move on.

Education and Upbringing

Sir Michael Neubert: I beg to move,
That this House, recognising one generation's responsibility for the next and the critical importance of young people's development to a stable, healthy and well-ordered society, calls on the Government to continue to encourage a wide diversity of choice in schooling, greater priority for the needs of children within the family and resistance to harmful influences to which they are exposed in the media and elsewhere.
When it comes to private Members' motions and the chance to initiate a Commons debate, fortune has smiled on me, not once, not twice, but no fewer than five times during my time in the House, and has half-smiled on me on two further occasions, when I came third. In all that time, however, not once has my name come out in the top 20 in the ballot for private Members' Bills, so lady luck has so far denied me the opportunity of making a permanent mark on Parliament by seeing some minor measure on to the statute book and generations of lawyers to come will be spared the need to remember my name. Although, in that sense, second best, private Members' debates are a valuable means of mentioning issues of importance that are too often crowded out by the legislative programme.
My motion sets out to provide a fretwork for discussion to which others can contribute and fill in the gaps.
My contribution will take several themes. Some are hobby horses, but I hope that I shall not appear to gallop off in all directions. The disparate issues have a common thread—a concern for the moral and social integrity of our people and the welfare of our children. That concern is touched by three aspects of education, two of which arise in my constituency of Romford: a deeper, long-standing apprehension about the future of the family and the subversion of our traditional way of life; and the menace of violent videos and other vicious influences in the media and elsewhere.
First, on education, the Government deserve credit for the courage of their reforms of the state education system —and not before time. Too many children have left the system with not a university degree but a degree of illiteracy and innumeracy that has handicapped them for life. The vested interests have fought like tigers for their cubs but, by responding to genuine grievance while pursuing the principle, the Government are achieving continuing progress and improvement. Especially welcome is the widening variety of provision. Education needs to conform not to some universal nostrum but to the abilities and aptitudes of individual children.
Choice has rightly become the watchword for parents. All the evidence shows growing interest in the exercise of choice. The increasing amount of published information is a necessary corollary to parental choice at all stages. One option for parents which I strongly support is single-sex education. There are two single-sex schools in the London borough of Havering: the Royal Liberty school for boys and the Frances Bardsley school for Girls. Both are in my constituency and regularly oversubscribed. Some of their popularity is undoubtedly due to their reputation for plain and simple schooling, but single-sex education is an important—if not all-important—consideration in some parents' choice. In recent years, a number have been disappointed and, because the schools are both in Romford, those who are my constituents have felt particularly aggrieved.
Moreover, in some cases parents who have given a single-sex school as their first preference have seen, through the system of selection, their children denied places and the places taken by children whose parents' first choice was a mixed school. The council has agreed to extend the allocation for single-sex preference by a small degree, but that element remains under-provided.
That represents a powerful argument in favour of the outstanding application for Frances Bardsley to retain its sixth form. When post-16 education in the borough was reorganised some years ago and plans were agreed for a sixth-form college, Frances Bardsley, along with other schools under full local authority control, was required to relinquish its sixth-form, but managed to negotiate a temporary reprieve. Now that the sixth-form college is full to overflowing, as a result—again, credit is due to the Government—of the surge of children staying on after 16, which is long overdue in our part of London, Frances Bardsley is, very reasonably, asking for its sixth form to be made permanent. That will be to the great benefit of the girls in the school. The juniors will have more mature girls at the head of the school and the sixth-formers will be free and undistracted by male adolescents to work towards the outstanding and exceptional results obtained by many single-sex schools last summer.
The Establishment is opposed to that, clinging to its grand plan, despite the change of circumstances, and fully prepared to spend more public money by providing extra accommodation when the existing facilities are already available and in use at Frances Bardsley. The parents, however, fully support the governors and staff in their bid, and backed them by voting for grant-maintained status, which they achieved a year ago. It would be a serious rebuff to them if they were denied their sixth form now, and a blow to the principle of single-sex education at sixth form level—an experience from which I benefited but not, I hasten to add, at a girls' school. At an earlier age in the course of my chequered education, however, I attended two girls' schools—[Interruption.]—as a pupil.
Given the Secretary of State's acknowledgement of the merits of traditional school sixth forms earlier this year, I have high hopes of a favourable decision in that case.
One of the three subjects that I took at A-level was English literature, which is indisputably one of the greatest literatures in the world and a priceless heritage for us all. No wonder parents complained about a text used for English studies at GCSE level at another school in my constituency, St. Edward's—a so-called poem entitled "Stobhill". Not only was the sole resemblance to poetry in the varying lengths of the printed lines; the subject matter was gang rape and the incineration of an aborted foetus. This, apparently, is our young teenagers' inheritance today.
When taxed with the matter, the headmaster was unrepentant in his defence. The chairman of governors, deputy headmaster in a neighbouring London borough, supported him to the hilt. The parents who complained proved to be a small minority. The Archbishop of Canterbury—and this, believe it or not, is a Church of England school—having referred to a mother's "very understandable worries", did not wish to interfere, believing that how something is taught makes a crucial difference over and above its objective content. Only the Minister of State, my right hon. and noble Friend Baroness Blatch, was prepared to describe the choice of text as "most regrettable". Amen to that.
That experience brought me up with a jolt: it made me

realise just how far things had gone. Another text used is a poem about a boy's killing of his cat by shutting it in the door. It includes the words:
The black fur squealed and he felt his skin Prickle with sparks of dry delight.
The boy killers of James Bulger probably felt the same sensation.
What chance do today's young people have when even school allows them no refuge from such squalor? What kind of society can it be in which parents, teachers, school governors and an archbishop can persuade themselves that gang rape is a suitable and entirely appropriate subject for school children to study—and in the name of English literature?

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: At a Church of England school.

Sir Michael Neubert: Yes, at a Church of England school.
That is why I welcomed the news, in March, that the reading list of mainly classic authors would be retained in the revised national curriculum, despite the opposition of leading English teachers. The council of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority agreed unanimously to overturn the recommendation of its own advisers that teachers should be free to choose the writers and works that pupils study.
I admire the council's pluck—one up for political incorrectness. It must have had its work cut out. Unfortunately, teachers can no longer be trusted to exercise discretion, because too many of them have been tutored in the progressive thinking that has prevailed since the permissive 1960s. The headmaster's defence was that, according to the latest figures, there were 69 teenage pregnancies per 1,000, and the abortion rate for girls aged 11 to 16 in 1991 was 2.2 per 1,000 2.8 in our area. What does he expect? If young people are saturated with sex, they will think of little else. An English lesson is a chance to show them that there are other things in life.
Nor should we overlook the element of political motivation in what has been happening in our schools. Nowadays, it is out in the open. Terry Eagleton, Warton professor of English literature at Oxford university—who has described himself as a "shamelessly unreconstructed Marxist", and who persuaded more than 500 academics, including 20 other university professors, to support a letter that he wrote to The Times Higher Education Supplement —believes that language is fascist, grammar an instrument of oppression wielded by the bourgeoisie against the working class and the horror film "Nightmare on Elm Street" every bit as worthy of study as "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He also believes that correcting children's speech is seriously harmful to their self-esteem.
Consciously or unconsciously, many teachers are helping to bring about the triumph of the left in education by absorbing such ideas and putting them into practice in the classroom. Part of "Stobhill" is in raw Scots dialect. There may be a case for advanced students to study such texts, but when the general level of literacy is causing so much concern, secondary school children studying modern authors would be better served by works written in standard English.
Children are the casualties of this ideological warfare. It is they who are being sent out into an increasingly


competitive world—into a hostile environment where more than 20 million people are unemployed in Europe, 35 per cent. of whom have never had a job.

Mrs. Angela Browning: Does my hon. Friend agree that children whose spelling, grammar and knowledge are not corrected at school are strongly disadvantaged as adults? Is he aware of a document on the subject of crime that is being circulated in my constituency this week? I have a copy with me. The spelling of the word "neighbourhood", as in "neighbourhood watch", begins "neib" in one instance and "neirb" in another; the word "scheme" is spelt "sceme", and the spelling of "prevention", as in "crime prevention", begins "pro". Does my hon. Friend agree that the Liberal Democrat councillors who circulated the document would have benefited from testing in schools?

Sir Michael Neubert: My hon. Friend's comments will come as no surprise to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster), who is representing the Liberals today and who is familiar with the document. I was not aware how closely illiteracy and Liberalism in the south-west were connected. The constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning) would do better to elect better trained and Conservative candidates in the council elections next week.

Mr. Win Griffiths: While we are on the subject of spelling mistakes and grammar, may I point out that on one infamous occasion the Secretary of State for Wales issued a statement containing four spelling mistakes and at least three grammatical errors? When it was marked by an English teacher, the right hon. Gentleman was given the thumbs down in terms of GCSE grading.

Sir Michael Neubert: That does not surprise me either. I have had the good fortune of serving as a Minister in Her Majesty's Government. During that time I, too, was disappointed and disillusioned by the standard of spelling among the civil servants who prepared briefs and press statements for me. I will not blame my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales without further inquiry: it may be that he has delegated too far and unwisely.

Mr. Don Foster: I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning) that the spelling was incorrect and that it was a great pity. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would be prepared to investigate the spelling of the word "grammar" as in grammar school. I could tell him an interesting story involving the use of that word. He will recall that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has used the following three phrases in recent months:
Myself and Emily Blatch have been all around the country",
me and my inspectors have been to hundreds of schools",
and
just the kind of thing that me as a parent".

Sir Michael Neubert: I would do better to await the more lengthy speech of the hon. Gentleman than to listen to examples of misspellings. I am sure that we could all produce our favourite examples and argue them for rather longer than we have available this afternoon, although I should be the last person to diminish the importance of spelling: I have always believed it to be an important grounding for life, and I still do so.

Mr. Bob Dunn: With regard to presentation and communication, if people do not care how they spell or how they present their ideas, are they likely to care about the policies that they wish to present? All hon. Members know that Liberal Democrats say one thing here and another in their constituencies, one thing in the council chamber and another at the council ward, one thing in one village and another thing in another village, and one thing in one street and a different thing in the next street.

Sir Michael Neubert: All Conservative Members have experience of that.
To return to the subject of children, who are so often casualties of ideological warfare, if they are not to join the 20 million unemployed in Europe they must not leave school unable to express themselves competently in their own language, unable to make simple calculations in their heads and with their sensibilities brutalised by squalor. I call on the Secretary of State, when he makes his decision on the curriculum later this year to range himself with the traditionalists and me—I think I use the word "me" correctly there—and my noble Friend Lady Blatch in agreeing that the sort of material that I have described is wholly inappropriate and that the study of English, to quote Lady Blatch,
is best advanced through an emphasis on the tried and tested works of real distinction".
On the wider question of the level of attainment achieved by our school leavers, I again commend the Government for their dogged pursuit of the principle of testing. It has long been clear to me that teachers object to testing often because tests are a test of them as well as of their pupils. However, it is imperative that there is a system of interim tests to check on progress, because leaving it to the final year examinations is too late—by then, any damage done can rarely be remedied in later life.
There are few second chances in education, which is why I regret the continuing opposition of the National Union of Teachers to testing. To judge from its much televised conference over the Easter weekend, it seems to have been hijacked by the hard left. Its position is neither honourable nor responsible. The Government have gone to considerable lengths to meet genuine grievances in introducing the system. The time has now come for all those involved to unite in making the system a success for the sake of children. Lest it be thought that my comments are unduly critical of teachers, I should mention that at the start of my career I did some teaching and am a certificated teacher. That experience left me with the highest regard for the dedication and vocation of the vast majority of teachers, but the welfare of the next generation is too important for me not to say what I think now.
The greatest threat to the welfare of children is the breakdown of the traditional family on which the structure of our society is founded. Let us consider some facts taken from an information sheet prepared by the Maranatha community as evidence of what it calls the "gathering storm clouds". The number of divorces has doubled since 1971; the United Kingdom has the second highest divorce rate in Europe, Denmark having the highest which, similarly, has the highest number of women in work, the United Kingdom coming second; marriage breakdown is now six times higher than in 1961; there was a 400 per cent. increase in births outside marriage between 1971 and 1991; eight in 10 births to women under the age of 20 are outside marriage, or are what used to be called illegitimate;


2 million children are being raised in single-parent families; one in five children conceived in the United Kingdom is aborted and 3.5 million abortions were carried out in England and Wales between 1968 and 1991. If children had a choice, how many would choose to be born into a world such as this?
The consequences of those figures are too numerous to detail, but we are all well aware of them. Every day, the newspapers bring news of some new enormity: increasing violence, spiralling social security expenditure, rising crime and drug addiction and widespread alcoholism which all mean a greater burden on the health service. Children are frequently the victims of such problems.
We have allowed our traditional way of life to be subverted and we are paying a terrible price for it. We must reassert our support for the family and devise and direct our policies to that end. We cannot afford to do otherwise—the creaking platform of public expenditure is on the point of collapse. Parts of our cities are not only nuclear-free zones but are rapidly becoming nuclear family-free zones.
Support for lone parents had risen to £5 billion a year before the Government took the decisive step to set up the Child Support Agency. Parents must be made to accept responsibility for their children and for their own future. Those who separate or who refuse to commit themselves to marriage should not look to the rest of us for support in their later years. Independence and irresponsibility now may be at the expense of loneliness and deprivation in years to come. Partnerships and relationships may prove to be the ultimate 20th century tragedy.
Among some of the worst influences to which young people are exposed are the violent images on video and television and in the cinema. The growth of violence is unquestionably one of the most alarming developments of recent years because it is so often pointless, unpredictable and inexplicable. There can be no ultimate protection for any of us against it but, for years, trendy opinion held that there was no connection between violent images and violent action. Now, at last, the academics have finally realised what common sense led the rest of us to conclude from the start—there is a connection.
The House did itself some credit two weeks ago by insisting on tougher curbs on video nasties. A few days later, a survey by the Professional Association of Teachers confirmed the widespread circulation of violent and pornographic videos among children of even primary school age. The horrific film "Silence of the Lambs" was one eight-year-old girl's favourite Christmas holiday film. One wonders who and where her parents are; one would be interested to meet them.
The potency of visual images on the television screen threatens to mar the life of every young child. A photograph published in The Sunday Telegraph after our debate illustrated that point with stark clarity. It depicted a baby in its high chair which had been placed within two feet of a 24-inch television set, head-on to the screen. He was looking at the screen in bemusement while the mother sat smoking a cigarette and watching him. In that way, we create a nation of zombies. The phenomenal power of television is barely constrained and rarely accountable. If parents use television and video as previous generations used the dummy, selfishly shrugging off their own responsibilities for looking after their children, we are lost.
"Only connect", said the communications guru Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s. "Only corrupt" might be the motto now. It is no surprise, given its all-pervasive,

all-powerful influence, that television is the favoured medium for those who seek to undermine our traditional way of life. Channel 4 is currently doing its best. Its gay Christmas has been followed by a lesbian spring. To give the flavour of what was on offer at Christmas, apart from a queen's speech by Quentin Crisp, there was an episode, caught by one of my constituents switching channels, which showed a man drinking his mistress's urine. Whether it was out of a tumbler or straight from the woman's orifice, I have not yet summoned up the strength to ask. Either way, it does not seem likely to have been a high point in western civilisation. Other programmes promised visits to strip joints and public urinals. In "The Greatest F Show on Earth", a comic argued for more bad language on television.
When challenged, Channel 4's defence is that it is required by its remit to offer programmes that are an alternative to those on the other channels. To that, I say that necrophilia may have its adherents, but that does not seem a reason for it to be shown on the screen in a living room. A second defence, echoed by the Independent Television Commission, is that such programmes represent only a small proportion of the hours transmitted. The question is whether such material should be transmitted at all. The argument is on a par with the Punch cartoon in which the unmarried housemaid confesses to an illegitimate baby, but says that it is only a very small one.
Let us be clear that programming of that character, which flouts all standards of decency, taste and discretion, does not come about by chance. Programme-makers are constantly seeking to extend the limits of what they can get away with. The examples that I have given are a deliberate and direct assault on three of our major institutions: the monarchy, the Christian Church and the family. We cannot allow the subversives to win. That means, among other things, that we cannot be all things to all men and all women, and all things in between.
There is no doubt that political motivation is one mainspring. Conservatives should wake up. After being rejected at the ballot box by the British people in four successive general elections, the left has been left to penetrate our defences from underground. Anything that undermines our traditional way of life is likely to sap our political strength at the same time. We should, therefore, especially beware egalitarianism masquerading as equality and the fallacy—perhaps spelt with a "ph"—that women are the same as men.

Mr. Harry Greenway: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way as I missed the first few minutes of his speech. He and I taught at the same institution, although at different times. He will know that in that institution, a great deal was done through school assembly and religious instruction to inculcate values by which children could live in later life. Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the report late last week that the National Association of Head Teachers seemed to question what could be achieved through school assemblies?

Sir Michael Neubert: Yes, I share that concern. One of the reassurances today is that, if he is successful in catching your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) may touch on this subject in his own speech.
I was talking about the role that women have to play in the world; I defy the fallacy that women are the same as


men. In the uniquely precious responsibility of creating and nurturing children, men and women have different but indispensable roles. Children need two responsible parents, preferably their own.
The motion calls for
a stable, healthy and well-ordered society".
To achieve that, we shall need to give greater emphasis to discipline, respect for authority, consideration of others and, above all, the integrity of family life. There is a phrase for it: "Forward to fundamentals".

Mr. Win Griffiths: I congratulate the hon. Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) on managing, at last, to obtain such a high-profile position for a private Member's motion and on the serious and important subject that he has chosen to introduce. Probably, I would heartily concur with more than three quarters of what he said, and I hope that I shall be able to explain where I felt that he was not hitting the target.
There can be no doubt that in Britain we need to improve the quality of the education given to our children and to consider seriously the society in which we live and the way in which it is developing. However, a part of what the hon. Gentleman said placed a great deal of the onus in achieving all those aims on schools and on teachers. He began to admit, in commenting on the influence of television and mass media, that there were other issues to consider. We need to make it clear that there have been developments in society in the past 10 or 20 years for which teachers and schools cannot bear responsibility, and which are of far more fundamental importance.
Of course, what we did not hear in the hon. Gentleman's speech was the fact that, for more than half the period in question and certainly over the past 15 years, his own Government have been in power. Some of the things that they have done, and the atmosphere and the ambience created in our society by them, have contributed significantly to the problems that he described and the fears that he raised.
For example, if we consider the legacy of the past 15 years in education, we find in our schools that the lack of discipline and the instances of the exclusion of pupils for behavioural problems are growing. Probably, those occurrences are vastly under-reported, yet the figures are still growing tremendously. It is only in the past 12 months that the Government have begun to consider seriously ways in which those problems may be tackled.
It is not the first occasion on which the Government have considered those problems. The substantial Elton report, which was published about four years ago, included 138 recommendations on how schools, local authorities, other agencies and central Government could contribute towards making schools places where children could learn in an ordered atmosphere. However, it has taken some four years or more from the publication of that report for the Government to take the problem seriously. The motion addresses a problem which has been experienced especially in the past decade.
We have seen the drive towards the local management of schools; I entirely agree with the Government on the need to give schools greater independence and control over finances. Labour local authorities were pioneering the idea

long before the great education reform Bill was introduced. [Interruption.] I heard a sedentary intervention of "Rubbish", but I assure the hon. Member who made it that he plainly does not know what happened in many local authorities around the country. There were Labour authorities that pioneered the local management of schools. There may have been other schools, as the hon. Member for Louth—

Mr. Michael Brown: Brigg and Cleethorpes.

Mr. Win Griffiths: I am sorry. It was the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown). I cannot keep pace with the rate of change in England. There were those who opposed the local management of schools, but, let us be clear, it was pioneered by Labour authorities.
Due to the way in which the entire financing of education has changed in the past few years, there have been tremendous pressures in schools—arising principally out of the way in which the average salary has been used in the formula rather than the real salary—on the number of teachers employed. For the first time, pupil-teacher ratios in primary schools, especially, are beginning to rise. However, classes are getting bigger and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will appreciate that that is a legacy of some of the ill-considered changes that have been made by the Government, which, so often, were right in principle, but wrong in application.

Dr. Robert Spink: Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the fact that expenditure per pupil since 1979 has been increased by 47 per cent. in real terms? That has surely added to the ability of schools to educate children and to give them the three essentials of skills, discipline and enthusiasm for education. As he says that the Opposition take the matter so seriously, will he explain why the Government Benches are well populated at the moment, yet the Opposition Benches are completely bare, as they have been throughout the debate so far?

Mr. Griffiths: May I take the more serious point made by the hon. Gentleman about the issue of funding? The funding of education in the post-war period has increased tremendously, but a large part of that increase has been to meet the greater demands of the education system, such as the use of computers in schools, laboratory equipment and the machinery needed for new technology.
When I was in school, they were only beginning to bring in equipment such as lathes. Yes, it was very much cheaper to educate children when one relied on pen, paper, pencils, chalk and blackboards, when overhead projectors were unknown and one was lucky if one had a slide show once a year in a school during the 1940s or 1950s.

Mr. Michael Stephen: The hon. Gentleman referred to class sizes. Would he think back to when he was at school, when, I expect, he was educated in the traditional method by which the teachers stood in front of the class with a blackboard and the pupils sat facing the teacher in ranks at their desks? Surely, it is much easier to keep control of the class and to impart knowledge to a class so structured than it is with the modern methods under which children sit at little tables each doing their own thing, and the teacher has to try to keep up with what each little group is doing. If we returned to the methods that


were so effective when the hon. Gentleman was at school, would not we be able to manage with larger classes and produce a much better result?

Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman was assuming that I was satisfied with the quality of education that I received. Indeed, at lunchtime today, I made a speech at Dulwich college on Labour's proposals for the future of education, which was well received, in which I explained where I felt that my own education could have been improved.
Whether the children are taught in serried rows or in groups in a class room is irrelevant. Instead, we must focus on the outcome of their education. In my case, in many subjects, the outcome was very good; in other subjects, it was not good. I was sitting in a row when I was being taught subjects A and B, but the outcome was far better in one subject than the other. It would seem that the rows within the class room were irrelevant. Far more important was the relationship between myself and the teacher and whatever else it was that motivated me. That is why it is so wrong to try to provide blanket solutions or to mount a blanket attack on what teachers are doing in schools.
Unfortunately, pupil-teacher ratios are rising in primary schools, despite the headline improvement in funding. Hiding behind that fact and not recognising that there are problems are perhaps reasons why all the difficulties to which the hon. Member for Romford referred have been placed on our doorstep. We have been far too prepared to defend our own positions, wherever we may find ourselves in the political and education spectrums, without looking too closely at the complications that arise in trying to ensure that children are taught effectively.
The headline figures tell us that there are better performances at GCSE examinations and at A-level. More children are going on to higher education of various sorts. Against that background, one would have to say that the hon. Member for Romford was entirely misplaced when he expressed fears about the education system. I was in sympathy, however, with much that he had to say about standards. Despite the good headline figures that reflect progress in the post-war period, we must deal with complaints that basic literacy and numeracy standards are not high enough to enable employers to have confidence in youngsters when they come to them for work. We know, too, that some of our comparisons with international competitors show that we are not as good as we should be.
We can spread the blame where we like, but it should be acknowledged that some good ideas, in principle, were being thrown up in the 1970s—for example, a national curriculum and schools having greater control of their budgets. Unfortunately, those ideas were implemented in a way that has proved to be counterproductive.

Mr. Andrew Rowe: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. Unfortunately, even the best motivated teachers in a school frequently find themselves without any serious basis of comparison with what is being achieved by better schools elsewhere when educating pupils of a similar calibre. Is it not disappointing that the National Union of Teachers should set its face against one of the simplest methods of informing teachers what can be achieved, in the form of tests?

Mr. Griffiths: That is where one of the great confusions arises. The NUT is not opposed either to the assessment or testing of pupils. Its membership, by means of a ballot conducted throughout the union, decided that it would

continue with the assessment of children to provide information about the progress of children for the children themselves and for the parents. At the same time, it did not believe that this year's national curriculum tests should be compulsory, because the tests this year will be drastically changed next year.
The union's membership is happy to ensure that the testing system is the right one, but it does not see why it is necessary to force all schools to take a test this year that is not likely to be a similar one next year. Let us be clear that NUT teachers have no problem with ideas about assessment and testing, although they have specific opposition to this year's testing alone. There is no problem about the future or about the outcome of the Dearing review, when—let us hope—there will be a system of both assessment and testing.
We should not forget that the Dearing review places greater emphasis on the assessment of pupils than on specific testing. I hope that, following the review, we shall have a system of assessment and testing with which teachers can be comfortable in the context of their work load. I hope also that they will feel that they are providing information to parents that will be genuinely helpful to them in assessing the progress of their children and the way in which the school is performing.

Mr. Richard Tracey: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that the position of the NUT as he has described it from his perception was not that which most of us understood from listening to the union's representatives at its national conferences as shown on television—or will he sensibly disown the speakers from the London borough of Islington, who made such a lot of noise?

Mr. Griffiths: As a consultant for the NUT, I was at the conference. I was amazed and extremely concerned when I heard some of the things that were said there. I am entirely confident, however, from my knowledge of teachers who are in their class rooms and who do not work through the structures of the union to attend its conference, that many of the speeches did not reflect the views of most members of the union.
I was trying to explain that the NUT's policy on assessment and testing is not one of blanket opposition. It has specific complaints about this year's tests and it is involved in the consultation process within the Dearing review. It is looking forward to the final proposals. I hope that the proposals will be of a nature that will enable teachers and pupils to have information on progress to pass on to parents as well as information about the way in which the school itself is performing.

Lady Olga Maitland: Am I to understand that, after all, the NUT will be supporting the full programme of testing? Does the hon. Gentleman understand that parents are seeking not only an assessment from the child's teacher but a comparison with other children throughout the country? In the absence of that information, the parent will never know whether the child is performing well. We should not rely on the individual teacher.

Mr. Griffiths: It is a matter of assessment and testing. That is what the Dearing review is about, as the hon. Lady will recognise. As I have said, the review placed greater emphasis on assessment than testing, but the two processes go together. Parents have a right to information about their


child's progress. The school needs to produce information about the way in which it is educating children who attend it.
The hon. Lady and I may part company over the fact that I do not believe that it is the job of the Department for Education to spend millions of pounds publishing national lists of results. Schools can publish those results and if that information is used by the newspapers or whatever, that is entirely up to them. However, the Department for Education should not have to spend millions of pounds to disseminate information which schools should make available to the parents of their pupils.

Mr. Don Foster: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Secretary of State for Education may wish to consider seriously the decision taken by the Secretary of State for Scotland to introduce a system of testing and assessment with which, I suspect, Conservative Members would be entirely happy, as would parents and teachers throughout the country?

Mr. Griffiths: There is a great deal of merit in the Scottish system. The Labour party is following closely how that system works in Scotland to discover whether the benefits can be translated into an English situation—and perhaps even into a Welsh situation, who knows?
Testing and assessment are required. The hon. Member for Romford referred to English literature. I also studied English literature. While the hon. Gentleman's examples were lurid, I entirely agree that they are not suitable material to be found in most classrooms for children in their early and mid teens.
The hon. Member said that Professor Eagleton had the support of 20 professors. That may be 20 professors too many, but we are still talking about only a small minority of those involved in education. We should really consider what is happening in classrooms.
I taught for 13 years and when I marked my pupils' work, without fail I marked spelling errors. I always put the correct spelling in the margin and I always drew that to the attention of my pupils. On some occasions, I even made students write out those words to reinforce the correct spelling.

Lady Olga Maitland: Not only is it appropriate to point out spelling mistakes, it is important to mark down work when a child fails to produce correct spelling, grammar and punctuation, because if that is not done, the child will never learn the disciplines that are involved.

Mr. Griffiths: I always corrected grammar if it was wrong in a sentence. Yes, I told pupils that they would lose marks. If an essay was worth eight out of 10 or an A in terms of its content, it could lose marks and even a grade if the spelling and grammar were atrocious. However, those judgments must be made against the principle that teachers should teach children how to spell and write properly. There should be no mistake about that. One should not then try to tar the whole of the teaching profession, and all English teachers, because of a few lurid examples of what happens in a tiny minority of schools. We should get it right in those schools, but we should not give the impression that the whole of the system is contaminated by bad practice.

Lady Olga Maitland: I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so patient. With regard to spelling, does he agree that teachers must conduct regular weekly spelling tests? Why do what I call the rather soft left members of the teaching profession resist those tests?

Mr. Griffiths: As I did not teach English at the stage when I would expect children to be doing spelling tests, I cannot rely on my personal experience. However, as a pupil, I learnt lists of words. I did not find that that inhibited my ability to enjoy English. I certainly believe that such tests should be part of the way in which teachers can teach English. If spelling tests have died out, I believe that they should be revived.
The point about Sir Ron Dearing's review is that it saved the Government from the worst breakdown in our education system in living memory. Sir Ron Dearing saved the Government from a breakdown in our schools. We should recognise the Government's courage in accepting the recommendations of the Dearing review because that amounted to a complete U-turn on everything that was said and done before that point.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Eric Forth): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am equally grateful for his kind words. However, he will acknowledge that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recognised that there was a problem in the development of the curriculum and testing last year. He asked Sir Ron Dearing to come in, to consider the problem impartially and speedily and to suggest solutions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State then accepted those suggestions. I am sure that that puts the hon. Gentleman's kind words in context.

Mr. Griffiths: I entirely agree that Sir Ron Dearing was appointed on the Secretary of State's initiative. However, he was appointed because there was total deadlock between virtually the whole of the teaching profession, the Secretary of State and parents who made it quite clear that they were concerned about what was happening. The Secretary of State had to find a way out and Sir Ron Dearing proved to be that way out.
I pay credit to the Secretary of State for recognising the need to appoint Sir Ron Dearing and for accepting all the principles behind the Dearing review. In the meantime, nearly £500 million had been spent on introducing the curriculum which was just about to go through a massive transformation because of the appointment of Sir Ron Dearing. To return to my earlier point, this represents a missed opportunity in the history of education in this country.
Back in 1976, the Prime Minister of the day, now Lord Callaghan, effectively started the debate about the national curriculum and general standards in our schools. The Conservative Government picked up the baton when they came to power. Unfortunately, instead of engaging in proper consultation, they had a view of the national curriculum, assessment and testing and they pushed it through despite the protests and objections of virtually everyone in education. If the Government had only listened at that point, hundreds of millions of pounds could have been saved and we might have reached the point that we will be reaching in the next year or two, three or four years earlier and without the travail, confrontation, damage and breakdown that have occurred in our education system in the meantime.
The national curriculum may be the most serious example of ill-considered spending of money. However, we must also consider the Government's grant-maintained schools initiative which is slowly but surely grinding to a halt. There has been a massive waste of money in the introduction of grant-maintained schools not only in respect of the Government's ploys to encourage more schools to go grant maintained, but in respect of the way in which those schools, at the earliest stage, were given additional and extra funding which resulted in state schools—local authority schools—losing out. Millions of pounds were lost there. It can be argued that the assisted places scheme, at a cost of something like £3,500 a place in 1993, is not the most effective use of resources in improving our education system.

Dr. Spink: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me again; I thank him for his patience. Can he tell us the Labour party's policy with regard to grant-maintained schools? Would Labour continue to support them or close them down? While he is talking about the Labour party's education policy, could he tell us its policy in all other areas of education, because the House and the rest of the nation are waiting to hear what it is?

Mr. Griffiths: Our policy on grant-maintained schools is clear. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman finds it difficult to keep up with the news. Our policy is that the appointed Funding Agency for Schools would be abolished, and grant-maintained schools would continue, but they would not have that status. They would be run like any other locally maintained schools. The whole of the funding of schools would be reviewed. That is currently being examined by the Select Committee on Education, and the Government have their own common funding formula process going on.

Dr. Spink: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Griffiths: If you wait for a moment, you also asked me to develop the whole of Labour's education policy in your wide intervention.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman means me, whom he should be addressing.

Mr. Griffiths: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Grant-maintained schools would continue to exist. They would continue to have an independent role like any locally managed school. Indeed, the Labour party is looking at a number of options for types of local management because we found that many heads are not happy with the type of local management that they have at present. Some of them feel that they have too much; some feel that they have too little.

Dr. Spink: I am still confused about the Labour party's policy on grant-maintained schools. Would the schools exist with total management control of the governing bodies consisting essentially of parents of children at those schools, or would the status of the schools change?

Mr. Griffiths: I am astonished by what the hon. Gentleman said, because the majority of governors of grant-maintained schools are not parents. As he said, parents are not the majority. In developing its policies, the Labour party is looking at proposals to enable more members of a governing body to be elected rather than appointed, as happens at present. The governing body of a

grant-maintained school would probably still be substantially what it is at present, but any changes introduced for greater democracy would apply to grant-maintained schools as locally maintained and managed schools, so the status would be gone. Let us make it clear: the status would be gone, but the schools would continue to exist and would be managed in much the same way as they are at present.
There has been a whole series of Government initiatives which I shall not dwell on now. The assisted places scheme and the city technology colleges have all cost a lot of extra money which has been ploughed into the system. Much more of the Government's money has been given to those schools than to other schools, and the rest of the state sector has been badly let down. It is that unfairness which has caused so many of the problems that we have today.
I shall set out some of the positive things that need to be done in education to combat some of the problems raised by the hon. Member for Romford. First, we would give priority to nursery education. The research evidence in this country and abroad is strong and shows that good-quality education gives children the best start in life. Over a period, the investment in nursery education would be paid back time and again in savings for the state.

Lady Olga Maitland: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I totally agree that nursery education in one form or another is essential for young children. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that 90 per cent. of children in this country already have nursery provision and, more important, there must be a diversity of provision for them? We do not want to be so prescriptive on the development of toddlers that we are forcing them down a road which is unsuitable. Surely, we need to be flexible with toddlers, and 90 per cent. of them are already provided for.

Mr. Griffiths: That is a myth. Ninety per cent. of three and four-year-olds in England and, indeed, in Wales do not receive nursery education. It is true that 90 per cent. of three and four-year-olds have some experience in a social grouping for some part of the week. That may be in a nursery school, a nursery class or a playgroup, and the provision is often only part time.
The way in which Labour would tackle the problem is to meet parental demand. If parents want nursery provision, it will be provided over a period. If they want playgroups, we will ensure through the standards we set and the support we give to playgroups that that will be a good-quality experience. We would not want to have a total blanket and say that everyone must do this or that. We are saying that nursery education gives children an excellent start to their learning lives. We would set in motion a programme to provide nursery education for those parents who want it for their children. If parents want playgroups, we will ensure that there is good financial support and a good standard set to ensure that the experience is good for children. Let us have no doubt about that. We would not force anyone to take up a nursery place. What I am saying is that we would develop a programme to meet demand.
I shall examine some of the issues on expenditure. First, the Government already provide money for under-five services through the standard spending assessment. Some local education authorities use all that money and more on providing a large number of nursery places. Other local education authorities do not use any of the money for that sort of provision. By a system of meeting parental demand,


those authorities where the money is not spent on such a provision, but where there is a demand, would have to begin to reorder their spending priorities. The money is already provided by the Government, so no extra cash whatever would be involved.

Mr. Forth: That is startling news which we should like the hon. Gentleman to develop—my colleagues would agree that he should be given time to do so. He seems to be introducing a new element of central Government compulsion on local education authorities. It is an interesting thought which I should like him to develop. The hon. Gentleman might also suggest which other elements of education would be sacrificed to this new priority which he would compel LEAs to adopt.

Mr. Griffiths: For a start, there will be no element of compulsion in the sense of making it a statutory duty for places to be provided. There is, however, a duty for the education authority to look at ways of providing nursery education where there is demand for it.
The hon. Gentleman's Department, the Department of the Environment or the Treasury—place the responsibility where you will—already provides money which is theoretically available for this purpose, but many LEAs do not use it. That is all I am saying.
In some authorities where the Conservatives lost control at the election, there has been a re-ordering of priorities. Money has been provided for nursery education without any increase in the tax being levied by those authorities, other than for inflation. We do not need to raise any scare stories about how it will be done. In the Government's own immortal words, it will be—to a certain extent—as resources allow.
In addition, we will divert spending from areas such as city technology colleges—although that aspect has more or less died a death—and the assisted places scheme. Those who are in the system would continue to be served, but money earmarked for the future of those areas could be brought in to nursery education. There are a number of options to be looked at before we begin to think about the additional spending.
It is an important area and, as I was saying before that series of interventions, the best-researched account of what happens where good-quality nursery education is provided is an American study which covered 27 years. Children from the same area were studied, and those who had the nursery education experience were compared with those who did not.
At the age of 27, those who had had nursery education had higher earnings. More of them were home owners, and had attained a higher level of education in school. The cost of meeting their special educational needs was not as high as for those who did not have nursery education, and fewer were receiving social security benefits. Far fewer of them had been involved in crime and there were far fewer teenage pregnancies.
All in all, through extra taxation, fewer benefits and less money paid in relation to crime and imprisonment, there was a saving of $7 for every dollar invested in the system for those children who had gone through the nursery system. It is difficult for the Government to look at the

long-term situation, but that is an investment in children which not only did well for them but, over a period, was good for the country.
Far fewer of them were involved in crime. Is not that something which we all want to achieve? The American experience suggests that that is one way of doing it.
A part of the Highscope system is the close and cultivated relationship between the schools, teachers and parents. We would want to encourage such a partnership throughout the schooling system. One way of catching the parents, and catching them young, is by having nursery education. Parents are far happier being involved initially at that stage than when they are involved in secondary schools. We believe that that is one way of improving those relationships, and it will help to make schools more effective.
We do not believe that there is one blueprint which the Government can impose on every school. We know that there is a series of ways in which successful schools are organised and led. It should be the Government's job to make sure that the examples of good practice are widely disseminated, and that schools have the opportunity to look at them and to take them up.
I know that the so-called assertive discipline method is being taken on by many schools. After using the system for a year, a school in the Wirral that I visited doubled the numbers of children who were getting the top three grades at GCSE. The school is expecting a further improvement in its results this year. The Government should be actively encouraging those things, and should not be trying—as they did with the national curriculum and its method of assessment and testing—to ram it down the throats of teachers and telling them that this is the way to improve results. With the Dearing review, we now have had a complete change.
We want to move forward sensitively with the best practice. We should not beat teachers over the head and lambast them. We should encourage them to do their best, and to make sure that the pupils do their best.
We will be taking a backward step if the Bill dealing with the education of teachers, which will be coming here shortly from the other place, goes through in the form originally envisaged by the Government. The Government have the concept of the school itself being solely responsible for the education and training of those who wish to enter the teaching profession.
An amendment has been passed in the Lords that will tie in the schools with the institutes of higher education. I hope that we will retain that amendment, because we need an improvement in our initial teacher education. I would have thought—and I hope that many other hon. Members agree—that, after 15 years of Conservative rule, there would be higher standards in our institutes of higher education. We must improve them.

Mr. Stephen: I have listened with genuine interest to the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Is he aware that he has already spoken for nearly twice as long as did the proposer of the motion?

Mr. Griffiths: I am aware of that. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the record, he will find that more than half of that time has been taken dealing with interventions. I will say one or two more critical things about teacher education, and then I will give the hon. Gentleman the chance to make the speech that he is obviously bursting to make.
We need better teacher education, and far better professional development and in-service training in our schools. We also need to introduce a one-year, or possibly two-year, induction for new teachers. New teachers far too often operate under the fear of failure. There is a culture where if a new teacher goes into a class and does not successfully teach or control it, he is dubbed a failure straight away. The teacher will feel a failure, and other teachers will regard him as such.
A proper method of induction could get rid of that approach, which has often stopped teachers from developing properly, and we could have good-quality teachers. I know that it is happening in some schools. The school in which my daughter started to teach two years ago had a superb induction scheme from which she benefited, and she has made great strides in settling down in that school. So it is being done.
If there is good-quality initial teacher education and good-quality professional development and training, one also must be able to say that those teachers who cannot teach must go. Let us make no bones about it. There must be proper and clear provision for teachers who, with all that help, turn out not to be able to communicate with children to end their connection with the school. That needs to be done clearly.
In our consultations, those involved in education have said that they are happy, given quality initial teacher education, quality professional development, quality induction and support, that when people cannot teach, they should not be in the classroom. Let us make no bones about that.
The issue of religious education and the role of assembly in schools has been mentioned. Let us make it clear that a school cannot be a substitute for either the home or the Church when it comes to religious education and assemblies. Yes, schools should provide religious education and should provide assemblies in which moral values can be inculcated or demonstrated to children. But we should not expect schools to make up for the deficiencies of parents or for the Church. Let us be clear about that. What the National Association of Head Teachers said about the difficulties for schools in the context of religious education was absolutely true. There are not people with the skills in our schools to take on such roles.

Dr. Spink: Train them.

Mr. Griffiths: Yes, they need to be trained, but one cannot go rushing in if one does not have the people to do it.

Lady Olga Maitland: It was done in the past.

Mr. Griffiths: If the hon. Lady thinks that the religious education and assemblies that we had in the past are the key to the future, I should point out that while there were good examples in many places, there were just as many, if not more, in which that approach failed. One might argue that that is one of the reasons why we are where we are today. It is obviously a fruitful area of discussion. I now give the Floor to other hon. Members.

Mr. Michael Alison: The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), who admitted to us that he spent much of his life before coming into the House as a teacher,

sitting in a raised position gazing at benches full of recalcitrant and obtuse pupils to whom he tried to impart the arts of spelling and learning, must rub his eyes this afternoon because he is in exactly the reverse position. He is in the learning seat this afternoon and he is confronted here by a line of persistent and patient teachers. He is the pupil. We are doing our best to penetrate his rather obtuse and impervious intellect with the lessons that he has to learn.
The hon. Gentleman is being forced to take extra classes as a result of the arrangements of the House. It is to the credit of the great corps of able teachers, instructors and expositors on these Benches that they have turned out in such quantity and displayed such considerable wit and knowledge in trying to teach this pupil something. I believe that he is not entirely impervious and that by the time we get to 7 o'clock he may have learnt his lesson. We shall have to wait and see.
I join my right hon. and hon. Friends in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) on his good luck in winning the ballot, his good judgment in selecting this worthwhile topic and, above all, on the very good speech that he made. It was one of the few speeches that we shall be tempted to look up and refer to again after Hansard has been printed to learn pearls of wisdom. My hon. Friend's motion specifies education in the context of the need to safeguard the younger generation. I should like to say a few words in that context about religious education. I believe that most people consider that religious education has a vital part to play in the safeguarding objective which my hon. Friend's motion specifies.
Any mention of the topic of religious education immediately puts the spotlight on the Department for Education's famous circular 1/94—that is to say the first circular for 1994—entitled "Religious education and collective worship". The circular issued official guidance to local education authorities on the two vital topics of religious education and collective worship. It is a working guide or maker's handbook, so to speak, to the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Education Act 1993. I believe that the circular, with which my hon. Friend the Minister will be familiar, is an historic document. It reflects a period of debate and decision making about religious education and collective worship in maintained schools of which future historians will not only take careful note but note with astonishment.
In our tolerant, secular and multi-faith age, is it really true that our House of Commons—indeed, our Parliament because the House of Lords was greatly involved—has legislated that
All maintained schools must provide religious education and daily collective worship for all registered pupils and promote their spiritual, moral and cultural development.
Local agreed RE syllabuses for county schools … must in future reflect the fact that religious traditions in the country are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of other principal religions.
Collective worship in county schools and equivalent grant-maintained schools must be wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character, though not distinctive of any particular Christian denomination.
Is it really true that the House of Commons and the House of Lords have put into the statute book those clear-cut and specific requirements for the teaching of moral and ethical truths on a Christian basis? Yes, it is true. It is an astonishing fact and one which future generations will scratch their heads about.
The fact that the circular has been issued with the clarity and unequivocal commitment to the teaching predominantly of Christianity and Christian worship in our schools reflects enormous credit on the integrity and clear-headedness, not to say the political and personal courage, of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and his predecessors, ably assisted and supported by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Schools, who will reply to the debate, and perhaps especially the Minister of State in another place, Baroness Blatch.
Lest my right hon. and hon. Friends or anyone else should fear that they have performed a legislative confidence trick in the circular, and that the guidance, and the 1988 and 1993 Acts which it reflects, represent the work of unrepresentative zealots foisting unwanted provisions on a secular and irreligious, although correspondingly passive and apathetic, population—lest that myth should ever gain currency—I remind the House of some significant background facts and figures. Some people are trying to promulgate the idea that we have slipped through an unrepresentative measure.
First, support for the religious education and worship provisions set out in the then Education Reform Act 1988 was massive and cross-party when it was considered, debated and voted on in the House. In a free vote on the relevant clauses in the Education Reform Bill—I emphasise that it was a free vote—the voting was 372 to 108, which was a majority of 264 in favour of writing into the face of the Act that religious education should be compulsory and predominantly Christian. It is not easy to score a large majority on a free vote.
Secondly, the voting reflected faithfully, as free votes so often do, the British population's feelings on the issue. That national consciousness and preference is well reflected in the latest 1992–93 report on religion, "British Social Attitudes", which found that 69 per cent. of respondents believed in God, 64 per cent. were associated with a religious denomination and 70 per cent. favoured school prayers. That is the real world and the real national pulse that that massive majority vote reflected.

Lady Olga Maitland: rose—

Mr. Win Griffiths: rose—

Mr. Alison: I will give way first to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) out of courtesy to the Front-Bench spokesman and then to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Win Griffiths: I am becoming a little worried because the hon. Member said that his purpose in this debate was to put me on a learning curve and educate me. I voted in favour of the amendment to which he referred and I am well aware of the survey. When people write to me about religious education I mention that to them.

Mr. Alison: I am happy to accept that rebuke from the hon. Gentleman and hope that it will be temporary. The art of teaching is reinforcing a pupil's knowledge and exposing the lacuna associated with it, which is what I shall do.

Lady Olga Maitland: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is symptomatic of the need for a properly structured

Christian education in schools that a poll at Easter discovered that one in four children are unable to recite the Lord's prayer? Does he also agree that it is disappointing that a vast number of local standing advisory councils on religious education have failed to provide a model Christian syllabus? There is a strong tendency to undermine our efforts to bring Christian teaching into our schools in favour of what I would describe as a multicultural mish-mash.

Mr. Alison: I take my hon. Friend's point and share her shock and dismay at the evidence of lack of knowledge and understanding that she exposes. Let us take comfort from the fact that the Education Reform Act dates back to 1988 and the subsequent Education Act back to 1993 and that sometimes it takes a little time for a rocket to lift off into orbit, but into orbit it will go. There is land to be possessed and we will possess it.
I was trying to suggest that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues are not out on a limb in any sense in the lead that they have given on religious education. I shall remind the House of one or two other people who are out on a limb. I have some information to impart to the hon. Member for Bridgend —Mr. Nigel de Gruchy is one such person. He is the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers and it is clear from his article in The Daily Telegraph on 20 April that when he calls for the scrapping of the legal requirement for religious education and worship—one can hardly credit it —he really wants secular schools. That is not what most people want, as I tried to suggest, and certainly not what most mums and dads want. However, that is what Nigel de Gruchy wants. Was the hon. Member for Bridgend fully apprised of the fact that that was what a major union leader was calling for? Perhaps this is the time for him to enter a new learning curve.
Similarly, the recent statement by the National Association of Head teachers argues for all religions to be taught for the same amount of time. Think what it would mean—a supermarket shelf full of the religions of the world, all of which are to be given equal exposure and treatment. The NAHT argues that if that is not possible our schools should be secular.
Nigel de Gruchy and David Hart, the general secretary of the NAHT, appear to want cultural relativism or barren secularism in education—anything other than our Christian heritage.

Dr. Spink: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Nigel de Gruchy said that schools can provide a better and more relevant moral code of ethics than that provided in the Bible?

Mr. Alison: That is the ultimate in presumption and arrogance. Union leaders are out of touch with their own members, let alone with parents. The NAHT argues that a daily act of Christian worship is an impossibility. I believe that David Hart has written in those terms to the Secretary of State. It is ironic that David Hart and the NAHT—a union which predominantly represents primary heads—should make that statement. A few weeks ago the Office for Standards in Education reported on religious education and showed that there is widespread compliance with the law in primary schools. Ofsted inspectors stated:
all the schools complied with the requirement to provide daily collective worship".


Yet David Hart, who primarily represents primary school heads, told the Secretary of State that it was impossible to provide a daily act of worship. Who is kidding whom?
The real world is the world discovered by the Ofsted inspection. To elaborate on its report, it not only said that
all the schools"—
that it had visited—
complied with the requirement to provide daily collective worship"—
but that—
Judged in terms of the quality of the opportunity they provided for social and moral development, standards in these acts of worship were satisfactory or better in 75 per cent of the schools".
Yet the general secretary of the relevant teachers union still said that it is an "impossibility" to conduct an act of worship in primary schools. I am not pretending, of course, that all is well with religious education and collective worship—my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) made that vividly clear in her intervention.
The position in secondary schools is certainly not as good as that reported by Ofsted in its visit to primary schools. There is still much land to be possessed in the relaunch of religious education following the 1988 and 1993 Acts. The Ofsted report contained some daunting facts and figures on the inadequate provision for religious education in primary and secondary schools. For example, it reported
A high proportion of teachers lacked the confidence, expertise, enthusiasm and interest to teach the subject effectively; many had volunteered because they valued the contribution of RE to the pupils' moral and social education
It is therefore still very necessary that greater confidence should be imparted to teachers, that more teachers specialise in religious education and that the status of that subject in the school curriculum and in subject provision should rise increasingly and be better regarded.
Let me quote a little vignette from paragraph 68 of the Ofsted report, which shows what could be done. It states:
Primary heads generally took responsibility for planning and conducting the acts of worship and often used the occasion as a major vehicle for setting standards of behaviour and relationships in the school. Visiting speakers, including local clergy, were invited to most schools during the course of the year and often made an important contribution. Increasingly the teaching staff do not attend school acts of worship. Schools need to consider what such non-attendance signals to pupils and the limits which this may place upon following up themes from worship in the classroom.
Surely the way forward is for a good lead to be given by head teachers and for the maximum use and support to be derived from local clergy and laity. The local laity, who are committed and active in their own churches and denominations, live in the rough and tumble of the real secular world and they therefore have an immense contribution to make in the sphere of religious education. They could be of particular value in acts of worship, because they could help children to identify and integrate their view of life with work and religion.
A more positive lead should be forthcoming from the leaders in my own Church of England—not least some of its bishops and our Church of England Board of Education —in helping to raise the status of religious education and boosting it rather than criticising and denigrating it and collective worship.
I should like to refer in particular to the Board of Education and to an article which appeared on page 506 of this week's edition of The Tablet. The board seems to be

obsessed with the issue of religious pluralism and religious minorities and the lot and the role of other religions in state religious education rather than with the teaching opportunities offered for the faith of which it is the trustee and custodian. Surely its approach is out of perspective. Just 3 per cent. of children on our own maintained school rolls come from a non-Christian cultural or religious background.
I accept that there are a handful of areas, obviously Bradford is one, where there is a concentration of such religious minorities, but they are offered opt-out provisions under the religious education statutes. Surely the Church of England, through all its hierarchy and bureaucracy, should be seizing the opportunity to develop predominantly Christian religious education in our schools.

Mr. Rowe: Is not it also the case that in many instances those minorities have a far clearer grasp of the importance of religious education to the children of their communities than we appear to evince? When the Archbishop of Canterbury preached to us at the start of this Parliament he said that in his estimation Muslims and other minority religions in this country respected Christians to the extent that they were bold and stood up for their faith and despised them to the extent that they were difficult to define.

Mr. Alison: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting that important and significant reference on the record.
Anyone who has had any dealings with religious education in the maintained sector knows, for example, that the Islamic community, relatively small though it may be, would much prefer its children to be taught in a Church of England school or a maintained school where religious education is an important and constructive part of the curriculum. After all, for members of that community Jesus is a prophet as much as Mohammed. Those people would much prefer to have their children taught in a Christian context than in a wholly secular one.
I beg my revered superiors in my own Church—the bishops and the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility—to recall that no other European country has such liberal and multifaith religious education as we do in Britain. In virtually all European countries, religious education is almost totally Christian and Christianity is taught as true—the confessional approach. In many states, only practising Christians are permitted to teach the subject. Non-Christian faiths are taught, if they are taught at all, in the upper secondary schools. On this matter, we should take a lesson from Europe.
In the whole of Europe, only France has secular education; even the former communist countries are now putting Christianity back into the timetable. In 1963, in the United States a humanist mother successfully got the Supreme Court to ban school prayer on the ground that it infringed the first amendment requiring the separation of Church and state. I am glad to say that that lady's son is now fighting to have that ruling reversed, because he suffered from a lack of religious education in school. That 1963 ruling is being widely challenged in practically every state of America and the dissatisfaction with the secular education is revealed by the growth in Christian private schools. According to Andrew Greeley, professor of social science at the university of Chicago, 73 per cent. of Americans want daily prayers in state schools. It is surely only a matter of time before the 1963 Supreme Court ruling


is overturned. Our own Church of England bureaucrats should savour and increasingly represent that spirit and movement.
It is worth reminding my colleagues how inextricably our language, culture and history are bound up with Christianity. You, Madam Deputy Speaker and your successor in the Chair, will need to exercise the wisdom of Solomon in deciding who to call next. You will have to have faith, hope and charity in believing that Madam Speaker's plea for short speeches will be observed. You will need the patience of Job as you sit in the Chair and you probably often wish that you could nip off and watch "Love Thy Neighbour" in the television room. Looking at our colleagues in the round, not many of us are inclined to turn the other cheek. We are more inclined to pursue the policy of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If one is my hon. Friend the Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, one finds many of one's colleagues a thorn in the flesh. One is probably inclined to call some female colleagues Jezebels, some male colleagues Judases. One may even think that The Times, or even The Daily Telegraph, utters too many Jeremiahs. If one is my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess), one is well known as a good Samaritan, as all those who followed his course to that housing estate where he confronted the yobbo the other day will only too readily know. We hope that the hon. Member for Bridgend in his learning capacity, will have a Damascus road experience before long.

Mr. Win Griffiths: I have already had it.

Mr. Alison: We very much hope that the hon. Gentleman who will follow me to speak will not be all things to all men. It will be difficult for my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), who does not suffer fools gladly, to be sympathetic towards what the hon. Gentleman has to say in that case.
We have here the opportunity of listening to words which represent pearls of great price from my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell), since he went into the Whips Office, must have discovered the meaning of the phrase, "Wheels within wheels". My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) is a David confronting the Goliath of British Rail and the French consortium in the massive intrusions on his lovely constituency landscape. The Whip on duty, my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Mr. Wood), will be made a scapegoat if we finish the debate with the wrong vote at the wrong time.
One could go on with many such illustrations. I hope that my speech will not be weighed in the balance and found wanting. The point is that Christianity is deeply written into the texture of our national cultural, religious and social life and we must get RE on to a rising trajectory in the role and the significance that it occupies in the life and teaching of our country.
I am pleased to be able to support the great initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Romford in launching us into this important debate.

Mr. Don Foster: I join all the other hon. Members who have spoken in congratulating the hon. Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) on initiating this important, interesting and wide-ranging debate. I enjoyed his contribution and learnt a great deal from it. I shall not touch on many of his arguments, but I agreed with most of what he said. I especially agreed with his remarks about some of the things that we have seen on our television screens. I share his view that the decision made by the House recently in respect of video nasties was a victory for common sense and an example of the House operating at its best.
I agreed with more of what the hon. Member for Romford had to say than what was said in interventions by some of his hon. Friends. For example, the hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) advocated that we return to the days when pupils sat before their teachers in serried rows. It was reminiscent of the ditty:
Ram it in, ram it in,
Children's heads are hollow;
Ram it in, ram it in,
Still there's more to follow.
The world of education has learnt a great deal from those days, and some of the approaches to education that have been adopted in our classrooms are much more constructive than was suggested by the hon. Gentleman.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Romford will agree with me in that respect because, in his interesting contribution, he made it clear that he believed—I agree with him—that our education system must be designed to cater for the aptitudes and abilities of individual pupils. That means considering, in part at least, a more individualised approach to what happens in the classroom.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) will not think me discourteous if I do not spend much time in responding to his interesting contribution. He suggested that it was primarily intended as a lesson for the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths). However, I was skulking at the back of the classroom and I picked up a few of the pearls of wisdom. I hope that there will be an opportunity for a full-scale debate in the House both on religious education and on the issue of collective worship in our schools.
It may save time and avoid some of the interventions that may have been planned if I remind the House that, like the hon. Member for Bridgend, I am an adviser to the National Union of Teachers and, like the hon. Member for Bridgend, I attended briefly the NUT conference. However, unlike the hon. Member for Bridgend, I have said publicly in advance of the debate that although I agree with the anxieties of the NUT about testing, I believe that the tactics that it has adopted are incorrect.
The hon. Member for Romford said that he wished to speak about two subjects—education and upbringing. That links, appropriately, what happens in our schools with the role that parents can play in the crucial task of educating people.
Everyone in the House would agree that education is vital, not only for individual pupils, but for the future of our country. There can be no more crucial investment than investment in the education service. I hope that Members will agree that the cost of providing poor education is ultimately greater than the cost of providing a first-class education service for all.
The hon. Member for Bridgend referred to one of those sectors of our education service in which we need to do much more—nursery education. I was disappointed that it was not referred to by the proposer of the motion. I think that it is now accepted by all the major political parties that nursery education and the development of nursery education are crucial. Nothing could be more important than making the right start, and nothing is more damaging than getting it wrong.
The hon. Member for Bridgend made an eloquent case for nursery education. In view of the time, I shall not refer to some of the important issues that he mentioned. The hon. Gentleman was remiss in not being able to present to the House a convincing explanation of the way in which the Labour party would pay for the massive expansion of nursery education for which it calls.
The Liberal Democrat party has made it clear that we would like a massive expansion of nursery education. We believe that that expansion cannot wait, and that it must be instituted as rapidly as possible. We have made it clear that we believe that it will cost a great deal of money—about £806 million annually, although there will be some savings from the 40,000 jobs that will be created by that expansion. A massive building programme will be needed, possibly of the order of £1.5 billion, and a significant training programme will be needed to ensure that all the nursery teachers who will be required have the necessary skills.
We recognise that our programme is ambitious and costly, and that we need to say where the money will come from, which is why we have said honestly that we believe that the money must come from general taxation and, if there is a need and we cannot find it from any other source, general taxation will have to increase to pay for it.
The hon. Member for Bridgend, if he is honest, is saying nothing different from the Government, and that is that nursery education must wait until resources become available.

Mr. Stephen: The hon. Gentleman has said frankly that his party would increase general taxation to improve education. Can he tell us by how much taxation would have to be increased to pay for all the other improvements that his party stands for in health, environment, social services and so on?

Mr. Foster: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Shoreham for giving me an opportunity, but I fear that if I go into the question of health and other matters you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will rule me out of order. I shall perhaps simply remind you that at the time of the last Budget my party put forward a fully costed alternative budget. It included significant improvements in the education service. Although we suggested that taxation should increase, the level that we had in mind was nowhere near that proposed and implemented by the Conservative party. We said at the last election that we would raise taxes if necessary, in marked contrast with the Conservative party, which said nothing of the sort. Indeed, the Conservatives implied to the electorate that they hoped to reduce taxation. Our estimate of the cost of a massive expansion of nursery education is less than half a penny on income tax, at both income tax rates.
The hon. Member for Bridgend has failed to make it clear where the Labour party stands on that matter. That is a pity, because the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) has been going round the country telling people how bad

the Conservative party and, to a lesser extent, the Liberal Democrats have been in their nursery education provision. Will the hon. Member for Bridgend remind the hon. Member for Blackburn that his local education authority provides nursery education for less than 19 per cent. of the relevant population, whereas the average for the country as a whole stands at some 24 per cent?
A report published today, entitled "Major's children 94", discusses the feelings and attitudes about which the hon. Member for Romford is so concerned. He would be as disappointed as me to read in that report that the vast majority of young people say that the only reason that they go to school is to meet their friends. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that we should develop our education service in such a way that schools become places which children want to attend because they see the benefits of schooling and a good, rounded education.
One step that we could take would be to deal with the state of our school buildings. Estimates show that the backlog of repair and maintenance amounts to some £4.3 billion. Although the Government have made some interesting and helpful suggestions to tackle truancy, I hope that they will consider tackling the state of school buildings because, if we could make schools attractive, it would go some way towards reducing truancy.
The main thrust of the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Romford, however, linked education with the family. It is crucial that parents are involved in their children's education. Early last week, the National Consumer Council produced a report called "Home and School: Building a Better Partnership". It contained some interesting ideas to develop the concept of the school-parent partnership. I suspect that the Minister will say a few words about that important matter in his winding-up speech.
I hope that the Minister will recognise that the relationship between schools and parents is not just about parents charters. Only today, we learnt that few people understand the content of the patients charter. I suspect that the new parents charter will not go far in developing the link between schools and parents. One way to develop that partnership is by ensuring that parents are given adequate, meaningful and useful information about what is happening in schools, particularly as it affects their children.
The Minister and Conservative Members may say that the Government's current testing and assessment procedures linked to league tables are providing that information, but I entirely disagree. The information is collected through educationally unsound tests. The information from the testing system is partial and does not help parents. The Secretary of State appears to be back-tracking from what he accepted only a few months ago.
The Dearing report, to which reference has already been made, recommended collaboration with the Office for Standards in Education and the School Curriculum Assessment Authority in mounting a research project into the potential of value added as a measure of achievement. In accepting the Dearing report in its entirety, the Secretary of State was presumed by people outside to have accepted the principle of the urgent need to consider the concept of value added as a vital component of league tables and tests.

Mr. Forth: indicated assent.

Mr. Foster: I note the Minister's acceptance. If that is so, it contrasts strangely with the remarks in a document produced by the Conservative party, in which the Secretary of State, in his capacity as a Member of Parliament representing Oxford, West and Abingdon, referred to my comments and said:
Mr. Foster proposes to make the tables 'value-added' … distorting the facts and making them unintelligible.
That is strange, given that the Secretary of State accepted the principle of value added. I hope that the Minister will now intervene and put the record straight.

Mr. Forth: I am happy to do so. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State accepts the need for the SCAA and Ofsted to look into ways of establishing meaningful "value-added" concepts in the publication of school results. But neither he nor I, nor any other sensible person, accepts massaging the figures to give the outcome which many people would prefer rather than a true portrayal of the performance of schools that value-added measures would give. We are asking the SCAA to establish a validity of approach, and we eagerly await that.

Mr. Foster: In that case, I agree with the Minister. If he says that he wants a new vehicle that will enable us to make judgments about schools based on issues that include value added, I am more than happy to agree with him, and I hope that that will be introduced as rapidly as possible.
The issue of parent-school relationships means that parents should have more opportunity to know what is going on and have a voice in it. I hope that the parents' advice shops that have been established in one or two parts of the country, and the conciliation centres to which parents can go in cases of dispute, will be expanded. Although I do not advocate it, I see some merit in looking into the possibility of establishing an educational ombudsman.
The hon. Member for Bridgend mentioned the proposed legislation on teacher training. Although I share his anxieties about the proposed legislation, which we shall have much opportunity to debate in the House and in Committee, I hope that during the Bill's passage we shall discuss the importance of ensuring that teacher-training courses instruct student teachers on how best to work with parents and the local community. That should be part of teacher-training programmes, but currently it rarely is.
Once in post, teachers need to be given time to develop their relationships with parents and with the wider community. That is very difficult for many of them, because of the overloading that they have experienced through the national curriculum, testing and assessment procedures and the massive increase in bureaucracy that has resulted from much of the Government's recent legislation.
Above all, it is crucial for parents to have a better chance of a say in the education process. Education, after all, should be everyone's business. Many parents currently find it difficult to know how they are expected to have a say, however—partly owing to recent legislation that has centralised power, transferring it from local communities and local government to the Secretary of State and often passing it on to quangos. Such bodies are undoubtedly remote and undemocratic, operating at some distance from parental groups and holding many meetings in secret.

Lady Olga Maitland: I was delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman say that parents should have more input. Does

he agree that it was parents who opted for grant-maintained schools? Given that parental choice brought the schools into that sector, does the Liberal party intend not to sweep them away?

Mr. Foster: This is, I think, the third time this year that the hon. Lady has asked me that question. I shall give her the same reply again. I do not agree with grant-maintained schools. I do not think it right for a particular group of parents, at a particular time, to vote on the future for all time of an individual school which, after all, should be the property of the wider community.
Given that the hon. Lady is so concerned about parental choice, and believes that balloting for grant-maintained schools is a good example of the exercise of that choice, I do not understand why she has never agreed with the following proposition: if she is right about that form of voting, why is it not equally right for parents to be allowed to vote, if they so wish, for schools to opt back into local education authority control? But the hon. Lady will never agree with that. She is prepared to vote for parental choice only on the rare occasions when it supports the party-political dogma of the Conservatives.
Unfortunately, evidence from around the country suggests that very few parents support that political dogma. Only recently, the Secretary of State spoke at the most ill-named conference of all time: "Grant-Maintained Schools—Maintaining the Momentum". There is no momentum towards grant-maintained schools: the number of ballots is declining, as is the number of schools voting yes—to a marked extent. I hope that I have explained to the hon. Lady where I stand and why I disagree with her; but I also hope that I have made clear the crucial importance of parental involvement.
The motion refers specifically to the need to
encourage a wide diversity of choice in schooling".
The hon. Member for Romford and I agree with that wording, but I suspect that our interpretation of it differs widely. For instance, I would expect the hon. Gentleman to support the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) in her view that the introduction of grant-maintained schools is an example of an increase in diversity and choice; no doubt he supports the principle of city technology colleges for the same reason.
I disagree with that interpretation. I disagree with the concept that is implicit in the hon. Gentleman's reference to choice, which suggests that he assumes that all parents can choose where to send their children. In fact, the vast majority of parents have no choice at all—which is why it is crucial for the choice and diversity that he mentions to apply in each school. Each school should be able to meet pupils' specific aptitudes and abilities—words used by the hon. Gentleman.
The Government are offering a false prospectus in regard to choice. If parents had the choice, they would choose smaller classes, more books and equipment and teachers with much higher morale. I was disturbed to learn today from a report that the number of teachers retiring on grounds of ill health has almost doubled since the introduction of the national curriculum.
If the hon. Member for Romford is truly concerned about improving education and upbringing, perhaps he will ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education—the Lynda Snell of British politics—to end the constant stream of quick-fix gimmicks and concentrate


instead on investing in education, returning to the co-operation and partnership that should be the basis for it and ensuring excellence for all.

Mr. Richard Tracey: I am pleased to be able to speak, and privileged to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert)—a valued colleague in London politics—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison). Both are very sound on the topics that they have discussed at some length. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford on his success in the ballot and his tabling of this important motion.
I want to concentrate on a specific part of the motion which caught my eye—the following words:
That this House, recognising one generation's responsibility for the next".
The implication is that the House must seek to educate the next generation.
I have a particular interest in London politics. Inner London has now experienced four years of education without the unlamented Inner London education authority. Education in inner London has been conducted by the 12 new education authorities, three of which are excellent Conservative authorities; eight are Labour and one, in Tower Hamlets, is controlled by the Liberal Democrats. What we sought to do in the Education Reform Act 1988 in dispensing with ILEA, which had failed a generation of London children—if not two—is now coming to light.
For many years, ILEA had been at the bottom of the list of education authorities. That is why, following the 1987 general election, the Conservative Government sought to abolish it in that historic 1988 Act. Now, after four years of the new education authorities which came into being in 1990, we are seeing results. The three Conservative authorities—Wandsworth, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea—gained higher than average GCSE results, according to the 1993 tables, than their Labour and Liberal neighbours in the other nine inner London boroughs. The same Conservative authorities gained more A-level points per student than the Labour authorities, and many more than the Liberal Democrat authority in Tower Hamlets.

Mr. Win Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman has given us some interesting statistics. Will he tell us what the equivalent performances were four years ago for those schools in Westminster, Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea?

Mr. Tracey: The performance of those schools in the last years of ILEA was far worse than it is now. Their performances are far better now. As I shall explain later, there is a desire among parents in Labour authorities in inner London to move to neighbouring Conservative authorities across borough boundaries. That is causing problems. One is now far less likely to gain successful GCSE passes in the Labour and Liberal boroughs than in Conservative boroughs. If one lives in a Labour borough, one is 39 per cent. more likely to leave school with no GCSE passes. If one lives in a Liberal borough, the figure is 50 per cent. That proves why there was a real need for this generation of politicians to correct the iniquitous position that existed before.

Mr. Don Foster: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the debate in the Chamber only a few minutes ago when the

Minister agreed with me about the vital importance of considering the issue of value added? In that respect, is the hon. Gentleman aware that Article 26 produced a value-added-based league table of local education authorities and that the position of Tower Hamlets rose dramatically to eighth in the entire country?

Mr. Tracey: The hon. Gentleman is new to this House and he was not here at the time of the debates on the Education Reform Act 1988. We have heard all about the Liberals' value-added results and the word is that they have been massaged by the Liberal Democratic party to try to deceive the people of this country.
The claim that Labour authorities and Liberal Democrat authorities have a desire to spend more money on education than Conservative authorities, which seek to make cuts, is fallacious. The education spending of the Conservative authorities in inner London—Wandsworth, Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea—has totalled on average £14.01 million more than the Government have recommended. The Labour authorities, by contrast, have spent on average £5.82 million less than was recommended by the Government. The Liberals in Tower Hamlets—here is another figure that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) may wish to massage—have underfunded education by £18.46 million. That completely blows asunder the claim by the Labour and Liberal parties that they are committed to the education of our children. There is no evidence of that in inner London.
I am sorry to have to build on the pain of the Opposition parties, but the band D council tax charge in inner-London Conservative authorities is £171.67 less than in Liberal-controlled Tower Hamlets, and £249 less than in Labour authorities in inner London.
The evidence of the quality of Conservative education in inner London has led to parents in surrounding boroughs wishing to move across the boundary line, as is their right, to seek a good Conservative education for their children. That has meant that 4,000 pupils from surrounding boroughs have come into Conservative boroughs in inner London. In Wandsworth, 2,255 pupils travel from Lambeth each day. That is an example of parents voting with their feet to seek a better education for their children.
My final argument relates again to people moving across borough boundaries. My hon. Friend the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I am about to raise with him one of the most serious issues of concern to parents in my constituency of Surbiton and in the education authority of the royal borough of Kingston upon Thames. It relates to the Greenwich judgment in the High Court, which considered the situation that arose as a result of the break-up of the Inner London education authority. Parents in Lewisham wanted their children to have a better education and began to move them into Greenwich. Greenwich tried to stop them, and was challenged by parents in Lewisham. The High Court ruled that parents in Lewisham had the right to move their children to Greenwich.
My education authority is top of the GCSE league table. Parents in the education authorities that surround Kingston upon Thames—Richmond, Surrey, Epsom and Ewell and Merton—seek to send their children into Kingston upon Thames. We have two excellent maintained grammar schools—the Tiffin boys' school and Tiffin girls' school. Every year, about 1,000 parents from the surrounding


boroughs seek to gain entry for their children to those schools, but there are only 120 places available in each school.
There is a knock-on effect in that the other, non-selective schools in Kingston upon Thames find themselves under pressure from other parents in Kingston who are seeking places. The result is that some parents in my constituency feel that they are being denied a proper choice of school because, as a result of the Greenwich judgment, people are crossing the borough boundary to seek places for their children in our schools.
Parents, especially of girls, seek single-sex schools for their children. That is very true in relation to two schools in the royal borough of Kingston: Tolworth school in my constituency and Coombe girls' school in the Kingston upon Thames constituency, for which at any given time between 20 and 100 people are on the waiting list.
There is enormous frustration among those parents who believe that choice is being denied to them. My hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Education will say that those parents can seek other schools, possibly in other boroughs, but the parents do not wish to do so. They say that if they live in the education authority with the best standards in the country, they should be able to send their children to those schools. They say that schools in surrounding boroughs are not so good.
That is the dilemma that they face. They live in a borough with a high standard of education. It is about time that there was true justice for those parents. The Government should consider this problem and ensure that my constituents are able to look after the generations to come by ensuring that their children have the best possible education.

Mr. David Amess: One hundred and twenty years ago it was said:
Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.
They were the words of Benjamin Disraeli and they were echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert), another Essex man. I was especially taken by the part of my hon. Friend's motion which states that there must be
resistance to harmful influences to which
children
are exposed".
The motion is in two parts: it refers to the education provided in our schools and to the education that we, as parents, give children at home.
I listened to the utterances of the two Opposition socialist parties, but heard no new ideas, and all their proposals would cost money. I do not believe that one necessarily has to spend more money in order to provide a better education. My children go to excellent state schools in my constituency of Basildon and I also went to an excellent state school.

Mr. Stephen: My hon. Friend will be aware that more money is spent per pupil under this Government than at any time in our history. Is he satisfied that the taxpayer is getting value for money?

Mr. Amess: No, I am not. I hope that, when the two Opposition socialist parties are campaigning during the

local elections and when Mrs. Smith comes to the door and says that the tax changes are shocking and that she is worried about the changes in value added tax, the canvassers will be honest and admit that if they were in government, they would increase her taxes even further. However, I take my hon. Friend's point.
I was also worried by what I heard about nursery education. There are excellent pre-school playgroups in my constituency. They do a magnificent job, but they are worried about what is being said about nursery education. They do not wish their role in the education of our children to be usurped by new plans.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Schools has visited my constituency and will agree that standards are improving in all the schools there. Two years ago, the head of one of the seven secondary schools in my constituency criticised the league tables because he was worried that his school would be towards the bottom. He wrote a leading article earlier this year, praising the same league tables because he was delighted that his school now seemed to be climbing to the top. Of course, Chalvedon school in my constituency was the first grant-maintained school in Essex. I am delighted that, just a short while ago, it was announced that it is to be one of the 12 schools that are to have city technology college status. That is an excellent commendation of the wonderful education that children receive there. Standards in all schools in my constituency are improving; I have cited two examples in particular.
Langdon Hills special school is embarking on a project for children with special learning difficulties. The children are taught in small groups and, in the past 18 months, the schools has managed to achieve remarkable results. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues will reflect on those results. In Basildon, we are especially concerned about dyslexia. Many parents worry when their children have special learning difficulties. Thanks to a wonderful lady called Christine Haggerty, groups of children with special learning difficulties are encouraged to participate in special programmes.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) kindly referred to my clash with yobboes a few weeks ago. There is not time for the House to hear the details of the incident, but the vicar involved, whose wife is a schoolteacher, released my private letter to the press and it subsequently hit the headlines. I had written to him privately to say how shocked I was that a child of theirs could support the yobbo element that I and others had confronted. In this week's local paper, another local vicar has written in support.
Schools certainly have a very important job to do between 9 am and 3 pm, but the education of our children cannot be left to the schools alone. That is why I especially applaud the present Secretary of State for Education who, when he was first appointed, made a marvellous speech about partnership between schools and parents. What happens at home is also important. It is no good some parents leaving their children in front of the television or giving them computer games and expecting them to educate themselves. Unfortunately, not all children go to bed at 7 pm, even when they are told to do so. The general idea is that material that one does not want one's children to see is shown after the 9 pm cut-off point, but that is not always what happens. It behoves us all to ensure that children receive careful supervision.
One hundred and fifty years ago, a Prime Minister said:


The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity"—
we must not fail them.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Eric Forth): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) and thank him for enabling us to have this debate, which has been important and valuable for a number of reasons. It has reflected accurately the widespread concern about what is happening in society and what we can do about it—an important function of debates such as these. It has also set those concerns mainly in the context of education which, I believe, is correct.
It was instructive that my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) said the supportive things that he did. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting the great efforts that my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister of State have made to introduce new standards, especially in the vital spheres of religious education and collective worship. My right hon. Friend the Member for Selby made no apology—one would not expect him to do so and, in acknowledgement of the nature of our society, nor should any hon. Member—for highlighting the importance of the established Church and of our established religion in providing a framework and point of reference for building what we want to build in our schools in terms of ethical and moral values. That is a point often repeated by the Secretary of State. His favourite phrase in this regard is that schools cannot and should not be value-free zones. In the past two years, that has very much been the message of my right hon. Friends.
My hon. Friend the Member for Romford raised another important point, which was reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) and which is one that we must face directly. Whatever we do in terms of legislation and statute; whatever accountability we establish at school level to parents via governors; whatever independent inspection regimes we establish through the excellent work of the Office for Standards in Education; and whatever we ask of our teachers, headteachers and governors, all of whom are vital, in the end we always come back to the role that parents play.

Lady Olga Maitland: Does my hon. Friend agree that parents' role is to provide their children with a stable home and that they should therefore think twice before they divorce, bearing in mind the fact that divorce has a detrimental effect on children's development?

Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend is correct. I hope that all parents think about the effect on their children of anything that happens in the home or in the family. I am sure that in many cases—although not all and not enough—such considerations are paramount in parents' minds when they think about such matters.
The problem is this. The Government have been right to give parents a prime role in education, whether in terms of expressing a preference in school, playing a role as governors or whatever. We have encouraged their participation. However, with that goes an element of risk. The risk is that the children of parents who cannot or will not rise to the challenge and co-operate may be vulnerable; in some cases, that vulnerability will go beyond the children of those parents. That is very much our challenge

as a society. It is a responsibility which the Government must share, but which they cannot accept in totality. My hon. Friends' concerns so often come back to that point.
Let us consider, for example, the concerns rightly reflected by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford about video nasties. I claim that we have gone a great distance, as a Government, to try to deal with the matter. An important role is played by the British board of control in establishing what videos are appropriate and suitable, and in which circumstances. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has recently introduced new and tough measures, which were widely welcomed in the House. However, when we come down to it, it must surely be the case that what is shown on video recording machines in people's homes can only be the responsibility of parents. Exercise whatever control we may, in the end we come back to that point again and again. With the best will in the world and providing the best framework in schools and in homes, we must face the fact that parents will ultimately determine the standards and responsibilities that are exercised in these important areas.
The same point probably applies in areas such as sex education, from which we have given parents the right to withdraw their children if they believe that that is appropriate. I believe that that was the correct thing for us to do, although I acknowledge that concerns have been caused in some quarters. One of the reasons for such concerns is that, although some parents may have views and beliefs, and may be willing to give their children what they regard as an appropriate sex education, most parents still look to schools to provide sex education in a proper way and within a proper framework of values.
In law, and through circulars and guidance, we have tried to encourage schools to provide sex education within the framework of values, ethics, standards and morality. I hope that the House will forgive me for so frequently quoting my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As he said, schools must teach not just the plumbing, but the values, which must be built into all the guidance that we give our young people in our schools. That is essential and is part of what we are trying to do.
I believe that the very positive remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby reflect the real efforts that we have made in recent years to provide schools with the opportunity to give young people a framework, a sense of values and points of reference throughout the teaching that they receive, whether in the matter of daily collective worship and religious education, in the provision of sex education or in other elements of the curriculum. In the science curriculum, for example, schools impart knowledge to young people about drugs and other factors that can be damaging to their health. There are lessons that young people must learn about avoiding peer-group pressure and about avoiding substances that can be harmful to them. In all those ways, schools have a vital role to play. I hope that we are giving them the guidance, material and mechanisms with which to play those roles. However, yet again, if parents are not co-operative, not prepared to allow their children to receive that guidance in schools and not prepared to give teachers the backing that they need when they are trying their best to give young people that guidance, it is difficult to see what else can be done.
The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) made some revealing remarks, at which I shall look carefully. They gave us some interesting hints about his party's


attitude to certain elements of education, although there was some confusion in what he said. He gave credit to Sir Ron Dearing—I am grateful for that—for squaring up to the real problems that had emerged in the curriculum and in the testing regime a year ago, for coming forward with imaginative solutions and for providing something that could be widely welcomed and accepted, both by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and throughout education.
Having said all that, the hon. Member for Bridgend drew back somewhat, as a representative of, or adviser to, the National Union of Teachers, from condemning the NUT roundly in its desire, alone among the teachers' unions, to continue to threaten the disruption of education and of testing this year, even against the background of the progress that has been made thanks to the work of Sir Ron Dearing. I found that confusing.

Mr. Win Griffiths: I make it clear that the NUT whole-heartedly takes up the changes proposed in the Dearing review and wants them to be a success. I pointed out that the NUT had balloted its members who said that overall, they were not prepared to undertake this year's tests, but that they were prepared to take on the tests that were the outcome of the Dearing review. For my own part, I believe that all schools should look at the tests for this year and, if it is the wish of the staff, they should take them.

Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bridgend. That is a helpful comment which, again, we shall wish to look at and consider; it may move us forward. I hope that the NUT will look carefully at the hon. Gentleman's words given his shadow responsibility for education; that may well be helpful.
It was regrettable that the hon. Member for Bridgend went on to imply that one of the ways in which he would fund his as yet unspecified commitment to nursery education would be by abolishing the assisted places scheme, which plays an important role in education and which allows access to excellent education for young people and parents who would not otherwise receive it. It is regrettable that the Labour party is prepared to be so destructive of something that has proved to be of such value and so popular among parents to fund an unspecified commitment to nursery education. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) reckoned that the commitment fell far below anything to which he and his party aspired. However, I leave that matter for the hon. Gentlemen to sort out between themselves.
In a superb speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Selby brought to light a worrying discrepancy. Ofsted, the independent inspectorate, pointed out the excellent steps taken by so many schools to provide quality collective worship and religious education. On the other hand, there were the bizarre comments made recently by the National Association of Head Teachers. The general secretary of the NAHT said that it was somehow impossible to provide a daily act of worship in primary schools. That simply will not do and it illustrates a worrying trend among some teachers' unions and their general secretaries. They are prepared to come out with negative, unhelpful and destructive comments when so many of their members—in this case, head teachers—are working so hard to meet the demanding challenges set by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and to do what the law now requires. I hope that the House agrees that that is a matter of some regret.
Overall, the debate has been positive. It has highlighted a number of concerns, but it has also given us the opportunity to see the way forward in so many ways in the vital area of providing the correct value and moral framework within which our education must proceed. I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends who have participated in and sat through the debate in such large numbers. I share the regret expressed by some of my hon. Friends that so few Opposition Members took the trouble even to attend the debate and that so few participated in it.

Sir Michael Neubert: This has been a lively and spirited debate. Having listened to every word of it, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part. In particular, I thank my right hon. and hon. Friends who have contributed either by their speeches, by their interventions or just by their attendance and vocal support. It has been an interesting occasion. It has brought forward one or two developments and has revealed, especially in relation to the post-Easter conference position of the National Union of Teachers on testing, some new prospects of progress, which I hope may be achieved. I hope that, overall, we have served the interests of the next generation by debating these important issues today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House, recognising one generation's responsibility for the next and the critical importance of young people's development to a stable, healthy and well-ordered society, calls on the Government to continue to encourage a wide diversity of choice in schooling, greater priority for the needs of children within the family and resistance to harmful influences to which they are exposed in the media and elsewhere.

Travellers' Allowances

The Paymaster General (Sir John Cope): I beg to move,
That the Travellers' Allowances Order 1994 (S.I., 1994, No. 955), a copy of which was laid before this House on 29th March, be approved.
The order applies to duty-free goods for travellers arriving from outside the European Union. I hasten to make clear straight away that it does not apply to cross-border shopping in other European Community countries for tax-paid goods, or to purchases made in duty-free shops on journeys in the European Community.
The order does a number of things, but most importantly it implements the increase in what is known as the other goods allowance for travellers arriving in the United Kingdom from outside the Community. That allowance is for goods other than tobacco, alcohol and perfumes, for which specific and unchanged quantity limits exist. The increase in the other goods allowance from £36 to £136 was set in train by the United Kingdom during our presidency of the Community and was agreed eventually by member states at the Economic and Finance Council on 25 October 1993 to come into force on 1 January 1994.
There was a need for the European Parliament to be consulted and, as a result, the necessary European Community legislation did not go through fully until March. Therefore, Customs and Excise introduced the increase by extra-statutory class concession on 1 January 1994, so that travellers could benefit as soon as possible from the extra allowance in anticipation of the Community legislation.
We are also taking the opportunity to simplify allowances for the crews of ships and aircraft by bringing them into line with those of travellers. We are also correcting a few small anomalies in the application of the allowances, which in fact go back to before the United Kingdom's entry into the European Community. Those will finally bring us fully into line with European Community law, but will marginally restrict the relief.
In the first place, we are withdrawing relief from payment of duty and tax on part of an item with a value exceeding the allowance, or an item that pushes a group of items over the limit. We are also disallowing groups of people from aggregating their allowances to obtain relief on a single item of a value exceeding an individual allowance. I do not think that those changes will have a large impact because, of course, there is a large increase in the allowance itself—from £36 to £136—which will supersede that impact. In contrast, all travellers will benefit from the increased allowance.
The order also withdraws the entitlement to allowances from the crews of vessels and other travellers who do not land anywhere outside the European Community during the course of their journey. That will affect only a small number, such as the crews of some fishing vessels; those who visit a country outside the Community will, as I have said, benefit from the full travellers' allowances, with an increased, alcohol allowance, as well as a significant increase in the other goods allowance. We have also taken the opportunity to consolidate the legislation on such matters. If one consults the order in detail, it is apparent

that we are repealing no fewer than 11 orders, which were passed over a period of 25 years, and replacing it with the single order.
No doubt hon. Members will have noticed the note on the Order Paper to the effect that the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments had not yet completed its consideration of the instrument at the time when it was put on the Order Paper. The Committee sought clarification of the explanatory note to the order, which mentioned travellers who land outside the European Community. It should, of course, have mentioned those who have travelled from outside the Community. There may be some who were born outside the EC and come here for the first time and therefore cannot be regarded as landing outside the EC and then returning.
That point made by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments is obviously correct. We shall amend the explanatory note by means of a correction slip. When it is reprinted, if that should be required, we shall amend it in the text. That does not affect the order, which is, of course, drafted correctly as intended and as I have just described.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The note on the Order Paper states that the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments has not yet completed consideration of the statutory instrument. Since 1987, and between 1979 and 1983, the person who almost always got up in the Chamber to draw attention to the fact that the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments or the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments had not considered such orders was the late Bob Cryer.
A large number of hon. Members have paid tribute to Bob Cryer as an active hon. Member in the Chamber and a man of very strong principles and have paid tribute to the way in which he worked for his constituents, but few people have paid tribute to the way in which he worked ceaselessly as a member of the Select Committee and the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. He was a member of those Committees for 13 years, 11 years as Chairman. He was always in the Chamber to draw to the attention of the House the fact that statutory instruments such as the one before us had not gone through the scrutiny process completely. Although it is a technical point and the Minister has cleared up the point that concerned the Committee, it would be remiss of me or any Committee member not to put on record on behalf of those of us who serve on the Committee our appreciation of the friendship and diligence that he demonstrated both in Committee and in reporting its concerns to the House.
Therefore, I hope that the House will place on record its debt to Bob Cryer, a parliamentarian with extreme concerns that he expressed not only in the Chamber, but in Committee where he worked extremely hard.

Mr. Andrew Smith: May I begin by strongly endorsing the warm tribute that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) has paid to Bob Cryer—his work, his diligence and his energy in dealing with statutory instruments, as in other areas to which he brought his marvellous skills as a parliamentarian which we all greatly admired and so greatly miss. I thank my hon. Friend for paying that tribute, which I am sure is shared by all hon. Members.
The order is pretty uncontentious: I have neither received any hostile comment, nor seen any hostile comment in the press. As the Paymaster General has said, it increases duty-free allowances for excise and VAT purposes for travellers arriving from outside the EC to £136 from £36. The increase in allowances is welcome and, indeed, overdue. If anything, it is a pity that the allowances are not a little higher. I also note the extension of full allowances to aircraft and ship crews, which I dare say will be welcomed by those able to take advantage of them.
I have some questions and comments to put to the Paymaster General on the main change made by the order, which turns on the other goods allowance. First, what was the reason behind the withdrawal of the previously available offsetting facility to which he referred, which allowed relief on part of a more costly item? Does the withdrawal mean that someone arriving in the United Kingdom from outside the European Union with, for example, a camera costing more than £136—his only overseas purchase—would have no duty-free allowance? That seems to be the implication to be drawn from the order. That does not seem very fair.
Secondly, we are to see the ending of the practice of aggregation whereby family groups could pool their allowances against a single more expensive item. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will explain why the practice is to be brought to an end. He said that he did not think that it would cause too much difficulty because the level of the allowance is to be increased. He did not, however, provide any justification for the ending of the aggregation. Surely it is a facility which should be kept rather than dispensed with.
Thirdly, I take up the news release issued by Customs and Excise on 6 April, in which it is explained that the crews of a relatively few vessels—mainly Royal Navy and fishing boats, but also other travellers such as rig workers, who do not land anywhere outside the EC—will no longer be entitled to travellers' allowances. I hope that the Paymaster General will explain exactly who will be affected by this provision and why the present conditions have been changed.
The news release tells us that the changes will affect only a few vessels and other travellers. Bearing in mind that the new provisions bear on travellers working in hazardous occupations, it seems rather petty to take away a small but no doubt welcome compensation in the form of allowances.
Fourthly, the news release states:
The practice of allowing an additional two litres of still table wine as an alternative to one litre of spirits or liqueurs over 22 per cent. volume or two litres of fortified sparkling wine or other liqueurs is withdrawn.
Is that not rather petty and somewhat ridiculous, given the millions of litres of still table wine now entering Britain, with low or no duty paid, from within the European Community? What is the justification for the change?
Fifthly, what steps are being taken by Customs and Excise, and carriers, to advise travellers of their allowances and prospective rates of duty when they are making their outward journeys from the United Kingdom? After all, one of the pleasures of overseas travel is the opportunity to shop for different goods at different prices from those generally available here. It would be a good idea to advise

people in advance about the rules and duties applicable on their return. Perhaps a leaflet should be printed setting out some examples. I am sure that the Paymaster General will let me know whether such advice is being made available and, if not, whether it could be encouraged.
Sixthly and finally, I cannot help noting that under the terms of the European agreement, from which the order originates, Germany was able to retain its existing limits for visitors entering from Poland and the Czech Republic. That would seem to contradict the principle of a common European policy. It will raise interesting issues if and when Austria and Finland join the European Community. I dare say that similar pressures will arise from the attraction of cross-border shopping elsewhere in central and eastern Europe.
The German Government's achievement in getting some measure of protection against the attractions of cross-border shopping on Germany's external European Union frontier stands in interesting contrast with Britain's inability to do anything about the haemorrhage of business in drink and cigarette sales from the United Kingdom to France on our internal European Union frontier. I know, as the Paymaster General stressed, that that has nothing to do with the order, but it is worth drawing attention to the German Government's success in securing a measure of protection on their external frontier.
I do not understand why people crossing from Poland to Germany should be subject to different rules from those that apply to people crossing from Croatia into Italy or from Bulgaria into Greece. I shall be grateful if the Paymaster General explains why the German exception is justified.
The Opposition do not intend to oppose the order. However, as I have said, I shall be grateful if the Paymaster General chooses to respond to my questions.

Sir John Cope: First, I add to the tribute that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) paid to Bob Cryer, our former colleague. I knew Bob Cryer for a long time. From my experience at the Dispatch Box and in other capacities—I was in the Government Whips Office for many years, for example—I am aware of the excellent work that he did for the House, especially in the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. I know from practical experience how difficult it is to find Members prepared to serve in some of the more complex areas of legislation and to undertake the difficult and detailed work involved in dealing with abstruse orders—especially in the context of European legislation—which come before us. There is no better example of someone who did that than Bob Cryer.
As the House will know, Bob Cryer was one of my predecessors for he was a Minister with responsibility for small firms. He was keen on steam trains and closely connected with the Keighley-Worth valley railway. All those interests endeared him to me, even if occasionally he made life a bit difficult or expressed opinions with which I did not agree.
The hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) asked several questions. He suggested, in what I am sure was a slip of the tongue, that there were increases in the excise allowances as well as in value added tax allowances. In


fact, for ordinary travellers we have consolidated the excise allowances, but not increased them. It is the other goods that are affected by the main change set out in the order.
The hon. Member for Oxford, East said that the order was overdue. I entirely agree with him. We have been negotiating for some time to bring the order forward. The hon. Gentleman drew attention, perhaps inadvertently, to one of the reasons why it has taken so long to introduce the order. He talked about the problem that Germany has had with goods sold tax free for export finding their way back across the eastern border for sale in German markets. Eventually, the only way to resolve the problem was to agree to the derogation to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
The allowances are to be reviewed again in 1995. The hon. Member for Oxford, East said that they should have been a bit higher. We wanted them to be higher, and so did some other countries, but these matters are best agreed upon with the Community. The order reflects the agreement that we were eventually able to negotiate.
The hon. Gentleman asked about some of the small changes being made and gave the example of a camera. He is correct in his appreciation of the effect on travellers in the position that he described. He drew attention to aggregation and to the fact that crews of vessels that do not land anywhere outside the Community, though they may be at sea in international waters, will have their allowances withdrawn. The three points relate to the original European Community legislation, which was agreed before the United Kingdom became a member of the Community. It is right to come into line with that legislation by taking advantage of the opportunity presented to us. The offsetting and aggregation are matters of judgment. Is it better to have a rather higher allowance and no aggregation or to permit aggregation and have a lower allowance? That is a matter of judgment and I am prepared to agree to the system as it has existed in most Community countries, even before we joined.
With regard to vessels that do not land anywhere else, the provision applies to passengers—if any—of such vessels. There have been difficult cases of vessels that sailed outside territorial waters and passengers who had shopped for commodities then returned and avoided the duty on those goods. That is clearly not a practice which we would want to encourage, as it is a means of avoidance. We would not wish to set up arrangements that could promote such a possibility.
The hon. Member for Oxford, East asked how that change was being promulgated, particularly by the carriers and by Customs and Excise, for departing passengers. Posters, leaflets and official notices are available and are being distributed in departure lounges so that people can understand the position, if they wish to, before they leave for their holiday or their overseas visit. They will therefore be aware of the position when they return.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Travellers' Allowances Order 1994 (S.I., 1994, No. 955), a copy of which was laid before this House on 29th March, be approved.

HMSO Trading Fund

The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science (Mr. David Davis): I beg to move, 
That the draft HMSO Trading Fund (Amendment) Order 1994, which was laid before this House on 13th April, be approved.
This order is essentially a technical accounting measure. It seeks to bring within the scope of the trading fund HMSO's growing business with public bodies overseas, chiefly in Europe, so that it can be handled in a more businesslike way. This overseas trading has hitherto been carried out on a token vote with the approval of the House. A token vote is a nominal sum, in this case £1,000, which allows much larger cash flows of income and expenditure to balance out over the accounting year.
The original trading fund order of 1980 did not envisage HMSO trading with customers based outside the United Kingdom. HMSO did, and still does, service overseas units of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and so on. HMSO's ambition to extend its customer base beyond the United Kingdom was approved by the House in 1991 when it authorised a new token vote to cover exploration of public sector markets overseas. The token nature of the vote meant that income and expenditure were required to balance out over the year so that there was no substantive effect on public expenditure.
The growth of HMSO's European business is now placing severe strain on the vote accounting arrangements. The requirement for income and expenditure to balance out over the year makes no provision for the working capital that is essential in any business. The time has now come to transfer the business from vote accounting to trading fund so that it can be handled in a more normal and businesslike way.
The order will permit HMSO to continue to develop its trading with public sector bodies in Europe and elsewhere on a businesslike basis. That will benefit British industry and the British taxpayer. En passant, by a strange coincidence of geography, the order will have a mildly beneficial effect on employment prospects in the constituencies of the hon. Members for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett). However, it is not primarily for that reason that I commend the order to the House.

Mr. John Garrett: I have a strong constituency interest in the order because the largest single unit of HMSO is in my constituency and is a greatly valued contributor to the economy of the city of Norwich.
As the Minister said, the order enables HMSO to take greater advantage of its printing expertise and, by widening its ambit, to cover the public sector in the European Union and elsewhere overseas. As the Minister said, the Government Trading Funds Act 1973, which governs the financial arrangements of HMSO, excludes trading in areas that have not previously been financed by a vote under the supply procedure. This remedial measure corrects that anomaly.
To its credit, HMSO has already secured business from the French department of employment and the German post office. It has the capacity in its new state-of-the-art


passport assembly line to secure much more business in Europe. The order will enable HMSO to finance such business.
By any standards, HMSO has been an outstanding success since it gained trading fund status. The Treasury attempted to cripple it at birth, of course, by saddling it with a £50 million originating debt and a £20 million long-term loan. However, it has largely paid off the debt and now has a turnover of £400 million with sales per employee at a record £126,000 in 1993 and a current cost operating surplus in that year of more than £10 million. A profit of £22 million is planned for 1996. It has very high levels of achievement in customer satisfaction with very high service levels in print and publications deliveries.
However, it is far from clear why the order should be brought forward at this time, useful though it is.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Why does the Official Report cost £7.50? That is a tremendous sum of money. My hon. Friend has referred to HMSO's substantial profits, yet all the parliamentary publications are very expensive. Can my hon. Friend, or the Minister if he gets a chance, shed any light on that?

Mr. Garrett: I assume that it is predatory pricing. As so many institutions, such as universities and public libraries, have to take Hansard and Government publications, I guess that HMSO follows the Government's request for it to be profitable. It certainly puts profit before the provision of subsidised literature for the public. The Minister helps to set those objectives and no doubt he will satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). My hon. Friend has made a very good point.
As I was saying, I cannot see why the order, useful though it is, has been brought forward at this time, because, at a time when HMSO is thriving, hanging over it is nothing less than a threat to its existence. I refer to the accountants' report on the commercialisation of HMSO—the so-called prior options report. I am told that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster now has that report. That makes it even more odd that the order should be introduced before the report has been published.
I understand that the report sets out a number of options for the future of HMSO. It is feared in HMSO—for very good reasons—that there will be 1,000 redundancies in the next five years amounting to no less than one third of the staff. The Minister might give us some idea whether that fear has foundation; or does he intend to make his announcement in the summer recess, which is a typical shelter for bad news?
If HMSO is to be substantially damaged by the accountants' report, it would be another case of administrative vandalism by this Government. It is not clear why such a study was commissioned from commercial accountants—a practice rather different from prior options studies in other agencies—and particularly from commercial accountants who are unlikely to grasp the sensitivity of the security of parliamentary printing by HMSO.
I cannot see any reason to change the trading fund arrangements under which HMSO has been so successful. If a further distancing from Treasury restrictions is necessary, a sensible arrangement could be to establish

HMSO as a wholly-owned Government corporation. HMSO needs less messing about, particularly by market testing.
It is interesting that the Government follow two contradictory policies at the same time. One is to establish agencies under the control of fully accountable and fully responsible chief executives. I see that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the head of the civil service now try to make a distinction between accountability and responsibility, but it is one that will not bear scrutiny.
We have a chief executive of an agency such as HMSO being told to run the show as best he might and to the best of his ability and then he is told that he must market test or contractualise on a piecemeal basis many of the agency's activities for which he is supposed to be responsible. That is a direct conflict. Of course, it is the reason why Sir Peter Kemp was fired—he had a row with the Government's efficiency adviser. The Government's efficiency adviser was keen on contracting out and Sir Peter Kemp was keen on setting up agencies. The two were in conflict, so Sir Peter Kemp, a distinguished public servant, got the bullet.
The record of HMSO in market testing has been excellent, for example, in retaining the highly efficient Bristol distribution centre and the Basildon reprographic unit.

Mr. Nigel Waterson: Hear, hear.

Mr. Garrett: I do not know why the hon. Gentleman should say, "Hear, hear" when he is in favour of privatising HMSO. Shall I give way to him? I heard the hon. Gentleman applauding the efficiency of HMSO, but he is a supporter of privatisation.

Mr. Waterson: To clarify the position, I was saying, "Hear, hear" to the hon. Gentleman's use of the word "Basildon".

Mr. Garrett: That is forgivable because I am sure that we all react—

Mr. Patrick Thompson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw.

Mr. Garrett: I withdraw any aspersion that I may have cast on the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson). I am happy to give way if he wants to make public his position on the privatisation, commercialisation and market testing of HMSO.

Mr. Patrick Thompson: I was listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech.

Mr. Garrett: Once again, the hon. Gentleman cannot make up his mind.
As I said, HMSO has retained some important functions. The Government rule is that every market-tested activity must be market tested again in three years' time. That leads to management and staff who are in constant turmoil because they are always having to bid for their jobs or resist some hostile takeover. We know that after a short time a contractor who has secured and won a market test soon finds ways of putting up the price or gouging the client in some way.
Market testing is nothing new to HMSO—,75 per cent. of its goods and services are already purchased from the private sector. HMSO has an exceptional reputation as a


reputable supplier to the public sector and has regularly exceeded the financial targets set for it. It has reduced its staff by some 200, mainly through early retirement.
The staff are in the dark about the future of this successful organisation. In a poll of the staff, 86 per cent. wanted to know what the prior options study team was doing because they had never been told since it was set up. Privatisation had the support of a mere 6 per cent. of the staff. A future private bidder should bear in mind the staff attitude to outside control or ownership of HMSO, as should Tory politicians in the City and the country.
HMSO's years of operating as a trading fund have produced an innovative, go-ahead and commercial organisation. It has a bright future which should not be jeopardised by political dogma. However, until we hear what the future of HMSO is, I welcome this modest measure which will enable it to expand its overseas trading.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I shall detain the House for a few moments to say a few words about the cost of Government publications and the effect of that—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): Order. The hon. Gentleman will be out of order because that matter is outside the scope of the debate.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am looking at the explanatory note. I quote precisely what it says:
The additional operations now to be financed by the fund are the procurement and production of printing and supply of stationery and office machinery and related services and the publication and sale of material in printed or other form for such bodies outside the United Kingdom as are of a like nature to those for which the HMSO Trading Fund already provides goods and services.
What I am about to say should fall broadly within the area that is identified in that part of the explanatory memorandum. I am dealing specifically with the cost of—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must relate his remarks to overseas matters.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: That is possible. The publication in my hand is available not only in the United Kingdom but overseas. Indeed, I imagine that under the present arrangements, if someone overseas wishes to purchase the publication which I am holding, which is a copy of the Official Report of last Friday's parliamentary debates, they would have to find a sympathetic Member of the United Kingdom Parliament and ask him to send it to them through the post, or, alternatively, they would have to subscribe directly to HMSO in London and thereby receive a copy of it.
I am interested in the costs that such people might be required to pay wherever they are within the European Community. I am especially interested in the fact that a high price for a publication of this nature effectively restricts—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he is out of order. Unless he can stick to the order under debate, he must take his seat.

Mr. David Davis: With the permission of the House, I shall start as best I can by staying in order and by answering the question of the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) about the cost of HMSO publications. As I am sure he already knows, for many years the price of the Official Report was heavily subsidised. In 1983, when the subsidy stood at £6 million, the Government decided progressively to reduce the level of subsidy. HMSO is currently having a MORI survey carried out to see whether a reduction in the cost of the Official Report would lead to more purchases of it. I hope that that is of some help to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) started by paying a well-earned tribute to the operation of HMSO. There is no doubt in my mind that HMSO earned that tribute. The hon. Gentleman asked me why the order has been introduced now. The trade in Europe—certainly abroad—that is carried out by HMSO has grown in a few years from about £6,000 to nearly £500,000. As the hon. Gentleman, given his background, will appreciate, that creates a significant operating capital requirement which is difficult to meet within the remit of the current vote arrangements.
The order allows, frankly in the simplest way possible, HMSO to handle overseas trade in a more businesslike way. Of course, that brings benefits to HMSO, to the Norwich, South constituency and to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. Patrick Thompson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way because it gives me an opportunity to say that, like the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett), I welcome the order. May I take this opportunity to pay a tribute to the work of HMSO—[Interruption.] If I may be positive, unlike the hon. Gentleman, who seems to be negative all the time, I welcome the important work done by HMSO and by many of my constituents in Norwich, North in HMSO. I have had the opportunity to visit HMSO on a number of occasions. I should like to make this positive statement about the work that is done in Norwich by this excellent organisation.

Mr. Davis: My hon. Friend makes his case very well, as I would expect from an excellent constituency Member of Parliament.
In addition to the benefits to the direct areas, there are also benefits to British industry. Some 80 per cent. of the sales abroad come from British suppliers. The hon. Member for Norwich, South referred to the success of HMSO in market testing. He is absolutely right. HMS0 has a market testing programme which has saved it about £2.4 million—well over 20 per cent.—on what it addressed. Contrary to the hon. Gentleman's comments, those savings led to no compulsory redundancies. Obviously there will be retirements and redundancies, but they are not compulsory, and that is beneficial.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the commercialisation study. The consultants' report which we have just received is extremely complex and refers to 18 different components of HMSO. It will take some time to study it, and I cannot at this point forecast when we will come to a conclusion on it. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want us to rush it, particularly since we—as much as


he—place great importance on maintaining the high standard of service to the House. The public availability of official information will, of course, be safeguarded.
I commend the order to House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft HMSO Trading Fund (Amendment) Order 1994, which was laid before this House on 13th April, be approved.

CONSOLIDATION, &C., BILLS

Ordered,
That Mr. Richard Tracey be discharged from the Select Committee to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords as the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills and Mr. Michael Bates be added to the Committee.—[Mr. MacKay.]

EMPLOYMENT

Ordered,
That Ms Angela Eagle be added to the Employment Committee.—[Sir Fergus Montgomery, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Alex Vail

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. MacKay.]

Mr. Nigel Waterson: I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate. It is a particular pleasure that the Minister of State will answer the debate, as, by a strange quirk of fate, he answered the debate in which I made my maiden speech a couple of years ago when he was in a previous incarnation.
As Members of the House, we are all used to holding regular surgeries. We deal with a variety of problems for our constituents; some serious, some less so. But in my two years as a Member of Parliament, I have not had such a depressing interview as that which took place in my surgery earlier this year.
I received a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Vaill, the father and stepmother of Alex Vaill. They told me of his tragic and early death. Alex was 23 when he died, and was much loved by his family. He enjoyed all types of sport including tennis, football and cricket. He excelled at school, and went on to read mathematics at Durham university. He was studying for his exams as an actuary when he was killed. He was due to get engaged.
In short, he was a talented, hard-working and responsible young man with his whole life stretching before him. Then, tragedy struck. On Friday 9 April last year, which happened to be Good Friday, Alex had been out for a couple of beers with a friend in Sutton, where he lived at that time. They left a pub in Sutton High street and dropped into a nearby McDonalds to buy some takeaway food.
Further down the street, they were accosted by a man called Graham Langley. He had obviously been drinking, and demanded that Alex Vaill give him one of his chips. This demand was politely declined, but that was not enough for Langley. Three eye-witnesses agreed that he was spoiling for some sort of incident. Alex and his friend began to walk away, and they were followed by shouted insults from Langley. He then attacked Alex and his friend, punching both of them to the ground.
Alex's skull was fractured and he was rushed to hospital. Four days later, he died peacefully after his family had agreed to turn off his life-support machine when doctors told them that there was no hope of his recovering. A young and blameless life had been snuffed out.
What of Alex's attacker? The contrast could not have been greater. Langley had a string of previous convictions, a number of them for violence. I understand that he was out of prison on licence at the time of this attack. Both in and outside prison, he was a keen body-builder and, as a result, is very powerfully built. People who have known him over the years in Sutton have contacted me to talk of his viciousness from an early age. You might ask yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, what he was doing roaming our streets at all.
I cannot do much better than to quote from Langley's own defence counsel, who said:
Mr. Vaill in his short life was a better man than the defendant has ever been or was ever likely to be.
I think that we can agree with that sentiment.
Langley was duly charged with the murder of Alex Vaill, and with inflicting grievous bodily harm on his companion. That seemed to be the appropriate charge. In


the ordinary way, one would have expected the imposition of a life sentence, although I shall have more to say about the effect of that later.
However, this was not to be. In due course, the Crown Prosecution Service accepted a guilty plea to the lesser offence of manslaughter. On Friday 25 February this year, Langley was sentenced at the Old Bailey to five years in prison. My understanding is that he is likely to serve only 30 months and, as he has been held in custody since April 1993, we may expect his return to our streets in September 1995.
There have been other recent cases that have raised this sort of issue. One will recall in particular the case of Jonathan Roberts, where a shoplifter killed his pursuer. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Streeter) has asked me to associate him with my remarks this evening.
I need hardly dwell on the effect of all this on Alex's family. In Alex's father's words,
the effect on our lives has been devastating. We are ordinary people, yet Alex was special.
He is sorely missed by his father, mother, stepmother, brother and sister. In short, the lives of his family and friends will never be the same again. Nor is this simply because of the natural process of grieving. They are also outraged and uncomprehending at the lightness of the sentence on Alex's killer.
The case raises a number of important questions about the workings of the criminal justice system. The first is whether the system of releasing prisoners on licence is being operated properly. Langley had a long record of violence and I should be interested to know what signs of remorse or of a change of character he showed which were sufficient to justify his release on licence. I am sure that the Minister will realise that if Langley had finished his full term, Alex Vaill would still be alive today. Recently, we saw that a number of convicted killers who were released from jail have gone on to commit 72 murders in this country in the past 30 years.
The second major question is the extent to which plea bargaining in such serious cases should be encouraged or permitted. The third question is the appropriateness of the sentence itself.
One of the first things that I did when I was made aware of this tragic case was to contact the Attorney-General to see whether there was any prospect of appealing against the sentence. The House will be aware that this Government introduced the possibility of the prosecution appealing against over-lenient sentences.
The matter was duly considered by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who duly wrote to me on 29 March this year. He said:
It would only be in the most exceptional cases that it could be proved beyond reasonable doubt that in throwing a single punch the defendant intended to kill or cause really serious harm.
Pausing there, it is interesting that an intent to cause "really serious harm" could be enough. In the event, Langley was sentenced also to two years to run concurrently for causing grievous bodily harm to Mr. Vaill's companion. I wonder whether this should have been a factor. The Minister may be able to enlighten me on that aspect also.
The Solicitor-General went on to say:
A prosecution can only continue if there is a realistic prospect of conviction. There was no realistic prospect of convicting Langley of murder.
My hon. and learned Friend went on to talk about the advice of senior lawyers involved in criminal law, and said

that the Criminal Justice Act 1988 gives the Attorney-General the power, in certain cases, to appeal against over-lenient sentences.
He concluded:
After very careful consideration, and in the light of the guidance given by the Court of Appeal for offences of this kind, I am unable to say that the sentence was so lenient that it fell outside the range of sentence available to the judge.
Subject to anything that my hon. Friend might say, it seems that I must accept the judgment of those more practised than myself in criminal law that it was appropriate to accept the plea of manslaughter.
The Solicitor-General went on to refer to the power under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 and reached the conclusion that I have quoted. That was obviously a considerable disappointment both to me and to the Vaill family.
As I understand the position, what we are talking about is the so-called tariff for a particular crime. The Court of Appeal lays down guidelines for sentences appropriate for crimes based on their seriousness. A glance at Thomas's "Current Sentencing Practice" is informative. While it points out that the maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is life imprisonment, it sets out several cases similar to the Vaill case in which sentences range from seven years down to 12 months. On that basis, one has to accept that the sentence on Langley was well within the tariff range. But the question then arises whether the current tariff is appropriate.
I am told that one of the difficulties is that so-called life sentences nowadays mean an average of only 12 years incarceration. One can readily see the problem. The whole range of sentences is pushed downwards as a result. My hon. Friend the Minister knows my view that capital punishment should be reintroduced in certain circumstances. That is not the issue this evening. However, I believe that there is a growing case for making a life sentence mean what it says. That, in turn, would allow the range of lesser sentences for lesser offences to be pulled generally upwards.
Perhaps the truth is that we need to review our attitude to punishment. In the case of Regina v. Sargeant in 1974, the Court of Appeal laid down four principles to be applied in sentencing: retribution, deterrence, prevention and rehabilitation.
Deterrence is naturally an important factor in any punishment. It is designed not only to deter the offender in future but to be an example to others who might be similarly tempted. Prevention must also be important so that the punishment can assist in protecting the public. At its simplest, locking away a persistently violent offender will at least ensure that he commits no further offence while inside.
I shall not dwell in detail on rehabilitation. In a sense, some of our problems stem from an over-emphasis on that aspect of punishment in recent years. Retribution is not simply a repetition of the old lex talionis, "An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth". It means that the punishment should be proportionate to the harm done. The historical basis is the replacement of the self-help system in primitive societies, for example the vendetta, by systems of state-administered justice. In other words, the state can rely on the support of its citizens for its criminal justice system only if it imposes sentences that take account of the natural desire of those citizens for retribution.
An extreme example of a case that cried out for the highest penalty was the moors murders. As Lord Justice Denning, as he then was, said in 1953:
The punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them. It is a mistake to consider the objects of punishment as being deterrent or reformative or preventive and nothing else … the ultimate justification of any punishment is not that it is a deterrent, but that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime".
Another quotation is from Justice Cardozo in his "Selected Writings". He said:
The thirst for vengeance is a very real, even if it be a hideous thing; and states may not ignore it until humanity has been raised to greater heights than any that have yet been scaled in all the long ages of struggle and ascent".
Whatever the reasons for it, I have little doubt that the sentence of five years for the unprovoked killing of Alex Vaill is inadequate. Nothing will persuade me to the contrary. There is something rotten in the state of British justice when sentences of this absurd leniency are meted out by judges for the crime of snuffing out innocent life. There is a natural sense of outrage felt by individual citizens when they read of such cases. For them, justice has not been seen to be done.
The Government have rightly pledged themselves to redress the balance of the scales of justice away from the criminal back towards the victim. Patently, in cases like this, we have not yet fully succeeded. We must give judges the powers that they need so that tough sentences are seen to be the norm for vicious acts of extreme violence. Society needs to know that the punishment will fit the crime, and when a life sentence is imposed, it must mean exactly what it says. I fear that if we do not tackle these serious issues soon, the support of the ordinary citizens of Britain for the law will ebb away.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean): I should like to start, if I may, by offering my condolences to Mr. Vaill's family. Nothing that I can say here will compensate for their tragic loss or for the suffering that they have endured. They have my deepest sympathy and, I am sure, that of every Member of the House. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, as a Minister of the Crown, I cannot comment on the decisions taken by the various parties involved in this case, or on the sentence passed by the court.
What I can attempt to do tonight is to explain the way in which the law works in homicide cases and to assure the House and those outside that the Government are determined to do what they can to ensure that those whose action leads to another's death are dealt with appropriately.
As my hon. Friend will know, under our law there are two distinct homicide offences—murder and manslaughter. Both offences cover actions that result in the unlawful death of another person. The purpose of having two separate offences is to cover different degrees of culpability. Murder is, in our view, a unique offence and it carries a mandatory life sentence as a result. My hon. Friend knows my view; I approve of capital punishment for those found guilty of murder.
The law requires that for a conviction for murder, there must be an intention to kill or to do serious bodily harm. That is a high threshold of intention, and rightly so. I can

well understand the strength of feeling of those who have lost loved ones through the actions of another; where the action has been deliberately taken with the intention to kill or seriously injure, the perpetrator is rightly called a murderer and, in the absence of capital punishment, that murderer could spend many years or, indeed, the rest of his life in prison.
But many deaths are not legally murder and cannot be charged as such. If murder is not the appropriate offence, the law on manslaughter becomes relevant. There are two broad categories of manslaughter. The first covers cases where there was an intention to kill or do serious harm, but the culpability of the act is reduced on grounds of provocation or diminished responsibility. In such cases, a conviction for manslaughter is possible and the sentence is left entirely in the hands of the trial judge.
The second category covers cases in which death follows a person's actions, but there was no intention to kill or do serious harm. For a conviction of manslaughter within this category, it is necessary to prove that death is the result of an unlawful act which a reasonable person would think would put the victim at the risk of some harm—not necessarily serious harm—or it must be the result of an act of gross negligence.
Where a person commits an assault, without intending to kill or do serious bodily harm, and his victim dies as a result, it is clear in law that manslaughter, not murder, is the offence for which he is liable. I am sure that that is a sensible path for the law to tread. It is not that the law excuses assaults or undervalues the innocent victim's life. However, it would be impossible to justify treating as murder cases in which death was an unforeseen and, on any reasonable and objective view, an improbable consequence.
Taking that as a sensible starting point for the definition of the offence is not to imply that some manslaughter cases will not still involve a high degree of culpability on the defendant's part and deserve long custodial sentences. The loss of any life is always serious. It is simply that the unintended consequences of an unlawful act cannot be the only measure of seriousness. Indeed, as a matter of natural justice, they should not be the principal measure.
It is worth studying the matter from another perspective and considering an example. Let us take an example of a person luckily escaping a deliberate attempt on his or her life—the bullet just misses its target, or the assault occurs only minutes away from a major hospital, which saves the victim's life. That is still attempted murder and the perpetrator should not be treated with leniency as a result. Of course not. We are rightly concerned that the sentence should reflect the evil of what the perpetrator intended to do.
The same principle applies when the consequences of an unlawful act go far beyond their intention or a reasonably foreseeable outcome. The recent Scarlet case involved a licensee who pushed a drunk out of his pub. The drunk fell, cracked his head and died. The licensee had no intention of killing and nor could he reasonably foresee that a push would result in death. He was rightly not charged with murder.
The penalty passed by a court for manslaughter depends on a wide variety of circumstances. The maximum penalty, which reflects the seriousness of the worst cases, is life imprisonment, but there is no mandatory sentence and nor—quite properly—is there any certainty of imprisonment in every case. The courts will consider carefully the


circumstances of the case when deciding the right sentence. They should consider the defendant's intentions and what he could reasonably have foreseen, as well as the consequences of his actions.
I stress to my hon. Friend and to the House that sentencing in each case is entirely a matter for the courts, within the limits set by Parliament and the common law. It is not for me, any other Minister or the Executive. It is not the Government's business to comment on what the courts do in that respect. Clearly, it is important that sentencing is consistent and informed by a reasonable and defensible philosophy. The courts, including the Court of Appeal, over time have naturally established a range of precedents and guidelines for types of cases, attempting to apply just such a consistent approach.
Of course, the courts must be responsive to public opinion and, from time to time, their approach will change as a result. If we were seriously asking them to forgo a fundamental reliance on intention as a prime measure of seriousness, it would be a matter for Parliament to decide. We are not saying that, and nor did my hon. Friend intend to ask for it. The Government do not intend to make that sort of change.
We must recognise that judges are not infallible either. Where an unduly lenient sentence is passed in a serious case, we have provided a power—to which my hon. Friend referred—for the Attorney-General to refer the matter to the Court of Appeal. In such cases, that court may quash the original sentence and substitute a higher one. Many hon. Members will be aware of cases in which that power has been used to the satisfaction and reassurance of the public.
Whether to refer a case to the Court of Appeal is a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. He must take into account the guidance laid down by the Court of Appeal in similar cases. Only if he is able to conclude that the sentence is unduly lenient—that is, that it falls outside the range of sentences that a judge could reasonably consider appropriate in all the circumstances—can he apply for leave to refer the case to the Court of Appeal. My hon. Friend referred to that in his speech and rightly pointed out that my right hon. and learned Friend had concluded that the sentence was not outside that range of guidance.
There is a good deal of information, much of it recent, about the courts' attitude to manslaughter. Seven such cases have been referred to the Court of Appeal in England and Wales and one in Northern Ireland. In five cases, the sentences were increased, in two they remained the same and one case is outstanding.
However, it is not for the Executive to take over the Court of Appeal's role in establishing the proper levels of sentencing within a legal maximum. I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said and believe that judges would be well advised to listen to his wise words and take more notice of public concern. People want to see justice done and they want the sentence to fit the crime.
Above all, the public agree with my hon. Friend and the Court of Appeal that every sentence should have an element of retribution, deterrence, prevention and rehabilitation. We can now enable the court to consider

cases that would have been barred from going to it. The opportunities for the Court of Appeal to act as a regulating body have increased considerably as a result, to the benefit of the system.
Finally, my hon. Friend sought my views on several issues. First, he was concerned about the system for releasing prisoners on licence. I understand that Mr. Vaill's attacker had been released at the end of a previous sentence —not as a result of a decision to release him early—which had been passed before the Criminal Justice Act 1991 came into force. Since that Act, any person serving more than 12 months is required to undergo a period of supervision on release. They can also be required to serve the remainder of their original sentence in prison if they commit a further crime before it has expired. If they are sentenced to four years or more, their release can be delayed until the two thirds point of their sentence, if the parole board so decides. For prisoners serving seven years or more, that decision rests with the Home Secretary. Again, they are supervised on release until the three quarters point of sentence and the remainder can be reactivated in the event of further offending.
The Prison Service cannot detain a person beyond the authority that a sentence passed by the court confers, but the 1991 Act allows the court to pass a custodial sentence in a sexual or violent case purely on the basis that it is necessary for the protection of the public and, on the same ground, to pass a longer sentence than the seriousness of the offence requires.
My hon. Friend was also concerned about what he referred to as "plea bargaining". The Crown can properly accept a plea on the basis of the available evidence, thus sparing victims and witnesses the ordeal of a trial, but that is not plea bargaining and the Crown Prosecution Service will, as a matter of policy, prosecute the most serious offence that the evidence will support.
Finally, my hon. Friend mentioned Langley's simultaneous conviction for an assault on Mr. Vaill's companion. I can tell him that the charge in question did not require an intent to do grievous bodily harm, but only an intent to do some harm and that really serious injury resulted. The maximum penalty for such an offence is five years' imprisonment.
To sum up, we should not expect murder convictions every time a person is killed by an assault. That is not the law of Britain and we have no plans to make it such. Sentencing in manslaughter cases is quite properly a matter for the courts and the full range of punishments, up to life imprisonment, are available to them. The courts face difficult issues in cases of this kind and their judgments will inevitably be a source of disappointment to some people. No relatives who have lost a loved one can ever be satisfied, understandably, with the sentence on the attacker.
Taking those tough decisions, which we ask the courts to do, is a task for the courts alone, within the framework that Parliament and the common law provide. We have no plans to change that general situation.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes past Eight o'clock.